A Strange Business

Reviews / Votes

Money and art are so tightly intertwined that we forget there was a time when the embrace was not quite so fierce... This is a persuasive and discursive account of how we got this way. * Sunday Times, Art Book of the Year * A beautifully written cultural history and a compendium of scurrilously funny stories -- Lucy Hughes-Hallett * Observer, Books of the Year * One of the best works of art history for years - a riveting account of how Constable, Turner and contemporaries made (or failed to make) their money. -- Philip Hensher * Spectator, Books of the Year * Groundbreaking... a scholarly but humane, and richly enjoyable, survey of the symbiotic relationship between art and money in 19th-century Britain -- David Kynaston * Observer, Books of the Year * A scholarly but also enjoyably anecdote-studded guide to the 19th-century London art world. The accounts of the eccentricity and rapacity of artists and collectors alike make one mutter "plus ca change". -- Martin Gayford * Spectator, Books of the Year * A brilliantly engaging account of the most interesting of all subjects: how artists make their money, in this case in 19th-century England. -- Philip Hensher * Guardian, Books of the Year * Wonderful... If you were setting out as an artist in 19th-century London, this is the book you would want as your vade mecum... Full of interesting ideas and odd apercus... Entirely joyous -- Lynn Barber * Sunday Times * To read this book is as pleasurable as a long lunch with a first-rate raconteur... Hamilton writes beautifully... Seldom have I learnt so much from a single book while simultaneously being so excellently entertained. -- Lucy Hughes-Hallett * The Times * Hamilton's fascinating and richly researched book surveys the art world from a number of different angles... It is lucid, insightful and simply gripping... This is a brilliant account of learning, or failing, to survive in a market of extraordinary brutality. -- Philip Hensher * Spectator * A great sweep of a book, gathering numerous colourful studies of painters, engravers and sculptors, as well as patrons, dealers and members of the spectating public. -- Seamus Perry * Literary Review * Entertaining and original ... As a whole, like a plum pudding, this book is both nourishing and full of succulent bits and pieces. -- Martin Gayford * Daily Telegraph * A gripping story not of artistic movements but of practicalities: who bought the art, who copied it, and how much difference new paint colours made... Hamilton is terrific on the story of how pigment production moved into the new scientific age -- Kathryn Hughes * Guardian * Hamilton is a lucid and frequently droll guide to this symbiotic world. His book is not about paintings but about the trades such as curating, pigment-making and publishing that grew up around them. There was plenty of colour off the canvas, too. * Mail on Sunday * Any number of novelists and historians could find inspiration in this vivid account of how the audience for art in Britain broadened during the nineteenth century... This is grand entertainment as well as serious history. -- Evelyn Toynton * Prospect * Fascinating, compelling and timely. * Art Quarterly *