Byzantium on display: Scholars, collectors and dealers at the Exposition Internationale d’Art Byzantin

In the early twentieth century, art dealers tailored their activities to the demands of a new generation of collectors who had turned to Byzantine art. The attention paid to Byzantium reached its peak with the Exposition Internationale d’Art Byzantin, at which more than 800 artefacts were displayed in the Pavillon de Marsan at the Musée du Louvre in 1931. This paper aims to investigate the role of private lenders to the exhibition, and particularly that of art dealers, who were instrumental in the founding of many collections of medieval and Byzantine pieces, selecting and importing from the Mediterranean basin fine objects for American and European collectors. The Exposition thus represented for them a prime occasion for the display of goods in a formal and officially recognized environment, and an opportunity to expand their network of clients.