Paolo Quattrone
Professor of Accounting, Governance & Society
Alliance Manchester Business School, Manchester, UK
Speech on “Ratio-nality: Accounting, rhetoric, and the mystery of values”
Accounting practices have a long tradition. Accounting history has a long tradition too but often overlooks how accounting developed by intertwining with knowledges and practices as disparate as religion, book-keeping, rhetoric and even magic. If some know that inventory derives from inventio, the first canon of rhetoric, not many know that ‘squaring the accounts’, takes inspiration from medieval and early modern magic squares. By drawing on extensive historical research on accounting treatises and practices from early modern to contemporary times, the talk will explore the links between accounting and rationality seeking to bring back a lost sense of proportion that accounting has pursued for centuries. Now more than ever, history can teach us the importance of knowing the past to re-invent the future.
Ingrid Jeacle
Professor of Accounting and Popular Culture
University of Edinburgh Business School, Edinburgh, UK
Speech on “Reflections on Accounting History in the Arts, Culture & Heritage”
In this plenary presentation, Ingrid will reflect on her own accounting history projects within the context of the Arts, Culture and Heritage (the conference theme). She will discuss how a historical lens allows us to explore the linkages between accounting and popular culture, with particular focus on the context of 20th century cinema going in Scotland, the 1950s Do-it-Yourself boom in Britain, and the compensation claims made in the wake of the Titanic disaster. She will also explore the role of accounting in the birth of consumer culture by examining some key retail innovations of the early 20th century US department store. She will further reflect on British heritage in the shape of Georgian architecture and discuss how accounting practices helped to facilitate the spread of this classical style throughout Britain and beyond.
Eike Schmidt
Director
Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte, Naples, IT
Speech on “Major Developments in the Art Market during the First Quarter of the 21st Century”
As the first quarter of the 21st Century will soon be drawing to a close, an attempt will be made to identify some of the major developments, which have defined the international art market during this period. Since reliable data for art market studies is generally derived from auction sales records more than any other kind of sources, a brief look into the recent institutional history of auction houses will start off the presentation. Topics to be addressed include the emergence of China and the three Arab Countries Saudi, UAE and Qatar as players in the field – not just in terms of consumption, but also as far as production and distribution are concerned; the discovery and rediscovery of female artists, with some thoughts about the interplay between academic, societal, political and market canons; provenance as a liability and as an asset; the NFT summer bubble of 2021; and the art acquisition patterns and policies of public art museums.