In The Emergence of the Antique and Curiosity Dealer in Britain, 1815–c. 1850, Mark Westgarth makes a significant contribution to the scant but growing scholarship on the activities of art dealers, providing what is a pioneering account into antique and curiosity dealers in early nineteenth-century Britain.

Westgarth examines the antique and curiosity dealer's role, activities, agency, and influence from 1815 to 1850. The beginning of the period is marked by the end of the Napoleonic wars, which spurred the mass transportation of antiques and curiosities to Britain. After 1850, the trade in antiques and curiosity became more specialized, due mostly to the establishment of decorative art museums. Westgarth focuses on the dealer's role in the commodification of what he terms historical objects, a helpful category that both captures the importance of “historicalness” (8) to the objects’ status as antiques and curiosities and reflects the wide range of objects sold under these labels at the time. Westgarth draws from an impressive collection of primary sources to make the convincing argument that the antique and curiosity dealer was a crucial, rather than peripheral, figure in stimulating desire for and disseminating historical objects in early nineteenth-century Britain.

The book is organized into four parts. Part one is mainly concerned with the “idea” of the antique and curiosity dealer “as a discrete social and cultural identity” (5, 26). Here Westgarth examines the image of dealers in literature (such as Dickens, Balzac, and Gautier), newspapers, and paintings in addition to social commentary, mainly from collectors and museum officials. Westgarth argues that the quantity and reach of the cultural references reflects the dealer's social and cultural significance. Furthermore, he notes that dealers were considered problematic characters in fiction and real life as their commercial motives muddied the moral value of art and raised anxieties surrounding the quality of the objects they sold.

Part two historicizes the emergence of the antique and curiosity. Westgarth acknowledges that previous scholars view the socioeconomic transformations of the eighteenth century as significant in stimulating a “consumer revolution” in Britain but argues “the emergence of the trade in historical objects in the period appears to be such an unusual phenomenon that its appearance cannot be wholly explained with reference to the changes in the social body and the expansion of economic and consumer capacity” (51). He contends that the concurrent trends of romanticism and historicism stimulated a fascination in historical objects that prioritized the importance of historical accuracy, creating ripe conditions for the establishment of the antique and curiosity trade. This part would be stronger, however, had Westgarth provided more detail on what the socioeconomic changes of the period were and how scholars have examined them in relation to shifts in consumerism. Additionally, what exactly made the antique and curiosity trade so unusual to other forms of consumer culture remains unclear.

Part three looks at the antique and curiosity dealer's roles, functions and practices. This part is predominantly based on the materials relating to antique and curiosity dealer John Isaac Coleman, who traded between 1823/24 and 1867. Westgarth draws on Coleman's company waste books (sales ledgers) to demonstrate the range of business activities and give a sense of the varied clientele shopping for antiques and curiosities, which included members of the landed gentry as well as the professional classes, statesmen, and politicians. Westgarth also analyzes Coleman's private correspondence with his customers. While Coleman's communication with collectors suggests a cordial relationship, his private letters to his wife show that he held various misgivings about his clients. The letters provide a tantalizing glimpse into the dealer-collector relationship, and it is a shame that Westgarth does not make more of them to scrutinize Coleman's self-fashioning as a dealer. Assessment of Coleman's attempts to showcase his expertise and cultural capital in his letters to clients, for instance, would have particularly complemented the section evaluating the antique and curiosity dealers’ attempt to distance themselves from brokers and establish a quasi-professional status.

In the final part, Westgarth uses Coleman's archive and trade directories to chart the antique and curiosity trade across Great Britain. Evidence suggests that antique and curiosity shops were ubiquitous by the mid-nineteenth century, emerging in industrial cities and provincial and seaside towns, but the heart of the trade was in London: between 1800 and 1845, the number of shops trading in historical objects multiplied twentyfold. These shops could be found in fashionable areas such as Bond Street, the Strand, and Regent Street and in more working-class areas, such as Seven Dials. Westgarth is attentive to the ways in which the locations of the shops in the social and cultural geography of London invested the antique and curiosity trade with alternative levels of cultural significance. In an engaging section, Westgarth charts the transformation of Wardour Street from the hub of antique and curiosity trading from the 1820s into the shorthand for dubious antiques and forgeries that persists to the present day.

Overall, The Emergence of the Antique and Curiosity Dealer in Britain 1815–1850 is a perceptive, engaging, and well-illustrated study demonstrating that the history of art and history of collecting still have much to learn from exploring the rich history of the dealer.