Creating the Bowes Museum: Collectors, dealers and auctions in mid-nineteenth-century Paris.

This article investigates how French antique dealers and auction sales at the Hôtel Drouot in Paris during the 1860s and 1870s contributed to the formation of the fine and decorative art collection of John and Joséphine Bowes, founders of the Bowes Museum in County Durham. Drawing on newly published primary sources and archival auction invoices, it situates the Bowes within a broader nineteenth-century art market network, challenging previous views of them as isolated collectors by highlighting their engagement with dealers such as Pierre Théodat Jarry, Adolphe-Cabaret Lamer, and Mme Lepautre. The study reveals that through these intermediaries, the Bowes accessed a range of auction sales—from modest lots to significant collections—allowing them to build a notable collection despite a comparatively modest budget, especially in the context of social and political upheavals like the Franco-Prussian War. Ultimately, the article positions the Bowes as exemplars of how upper-middle-class collectors participated in the expanding and increasingly accessible art market of their time, contributing to museum formation alongside more elite collectors and institutions.