Selling the Artist: Advertising, Art, and Audience in Nineteenth-Century Shanghai

Abstract

Art advertisements found in the classifieds section of the Shanghai newspaper Shenbao offer rich documentation of the nineteenth-century Shanghai art world's producers, products, and prices; they are also highly revealing of the changing relationship between artist and audience in the late Qing era. The examination of a selection of advertisements promoting works by artists ranging from the celebrated, such as Ren Bonian (1840–1895), to the completely obscure reveals how Shanghai artists positioned themselves in the marketplace, cultivated a public image, pitched their works, and negotiated their relationship with a large and anonymous urban audience.