Year of the Dealer project reveals antique dealers' role in shaping V&A collection

The Year of the Dealer project, led by Mark Westgarth at the University of Leeds and funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council, has investigated the role of antique dealers in building the V&A's collection. The project, which involved the V&A, The Bowes Museum, Lady Lever Art Gallery, Preston Park, and Temple Newsam, produced ten short films—two per museum—each focusing on a single object's history as an 'antique' and the dealer involved. At the V&A, films highlight dealers from the 1820s to the 1980s: Dean Tuck, who sold a Holbein miniature of Anne of Cleves in 1826; Durlacher Brothers, who sold Henry VIII's writing box in 1932; women dealers like Mrs Amelia Hardingham; Phillips of Hitchin, who sold a giltwood side table in 1947; and Frank Partridge, who sold the Great Bed of Ware in 1931 for £4,000—four times the Furniture Department's annual budget. The project builds on the V&A's increased provenance research since its 1852 founding, emphasizing dealer relationships with early directors like Henry Cole and dealer John Webb, who left a purchase fund still active.