Tracing the (Unexpected) Dispersal of the Paintings Collection of Ferdinand II of Portugal, the “Artist King”

Abstract

In less than fifty years, King Ferdinand II of Portugal formed an outstanding collection of works of art by old masters and modern Portuguese artists that attracted international attention. Nationally, his devotion to art won him the people’s affection as well as an illustrative nickname: the “Artist King.” When, upon Ferdinand II’s death in 1885, it was discovered that his will did not bequeath a single artwork to the Portuguese nation but instead left them to his heirs and at auction, the country was shocked. This essay provides a holistic review of the dispersal of Ferdinand II’s painting collection, here reassembled in a dataset that draws upon an after-death inventory and auction sales records. By contextualizing the data with economic, social, and historical factors and exploring the behavior of the collection’s main buyers, it becomes clear that the 1893 public auction of Ferdinand II’s collection truly stirred the nineteenth-century Portuguese art market and led to the rise of new collections of Portuguese modern art.