Acknowledgments

Over the course of its research and writing, this book has accumulated many debts. The greatest debt of gratitude is owed to Diane Bodart and Michael Cole, who directed the doctoral dissertation from which this book derives. In particular, thanks go to Diane for her book on Habsburg portraits and their painters, which made me believe it was still possible to find new and innovative ways to talk about the history of Spanish art, and to Michael for having the extremely good sense to recommend it. I can never possibly repay them for their unrelenting support of my project, their unswervingly good advice and indefatigable guidance, and especially for being models of scholarship in the field. Their dedication, brilliance, and humility never fail to inspire me, and I count my lucky stars to know them. Thanks are owed in addition to Anne Higonnet, who has been integral to the project from the start. “Collecting” was—and remains—essential.

Rough drafts of several chapters of this book were presented at the Fitzwilliam Museum, the National Gallery of Art, the Museo Nacional del Prado, the Bruce Museum of Arts and Science, the Frick Collection, and the Kunsthistorisches Museum. I am grateful to all those present at these events—scholars and members of the public alike— for their questions, comments, concerns of all kinds. Laura Bass and John Marciari both read the first draft of the book manuscript, even before I knew that was what it was. Thanks to their close reading of it, this final draft is markedly better.

The research underpinning this book was undertaken in several libraries, each of which was more pleasant to work in than the last. Thanks are owed to the staff of the Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library at Columbia University, the library at the Museo Nacional del Prado, the Biblioteca Nacional de España, the Huntington Library, the library at the National Gallery of Art, the Getty Research Institute, the New York Public Library, and the Watson Library at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Special thanks go to the extraordinarily patient staff at the Archivo General de Palacio in Madrid and the Archivo General de Simancas in Valladolid, who were instrumental in helping me understand the role that documents would play in the project, and to the Renaissance Society of America and the Casa de Velázquez for offering the funds with which to travel to consult them.

The research and writing of this book was conducted while I was employed in different capacities at several art museums in the following order: the Musée du Louvre; the Whitney Museum of American Art; the Meadows Museum and the Museo Nacional del Prado; the National Gallery of Art; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Museo Guggenheim Bilbao, and Collezione Peggy Guggenheim; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and the Albright-Knox Art Gallery (now the Buffalo AKG Art Museum). My understanding of the stakes of curatorial practice has been enriched immeasurably by the time that I spent at each, and I am grateful to the many members of staff—whether working in curatorial departments, conservation laboratories, frame workshops, or exhibition design departments—who taught me in their own ways the work of art.

A final round of revisions to this book was done while I was the postdoctoral fellow in the Lise Meitner Group “Decay, Loss and Conservation in Art History” at the Bibliotheca Hertziana—Max Planck Institute for Art History. I am grateful to Francesca Borgo, its group leader, for her support of the project, financial and otherwise, and even more so for being one of the most provocative and galvanizing interlocutors of my career. The editorial team responsible for Brill’s Studies on Art, Art History, and Intellectual History (BSAI), helmed by the extremely supportive Walter Melion as well as the endlessly helpful Ivo Romein, has handled the creation of the book with stalwart professionalism. An RSA-Samuel H. Kress Publication Subvention paid for copyediting, carried out by the meticulous Lea Greenberg.

For all its faults, this book is dedicated to the memory of my father, who was a model of excellence in every aspect of his life, both personal and professional. It does not deserve him.