You see, in my position I must collect. My mother did it, and my grandfather did it. It is an obligation. After all, the Medicis did it too.' Nelson Rockefeller
Sociologists have argued that the act of collecting begins in childhood. We collect cards, flowers and toys, eventually trading them for art, sports cars, books, and wine, among a plethora of interests. Like the bowerbird that captures anything with blue colouring, art collectors maintain a consuming obsession with their subject, and research shows that one in three people will remain collectors into their adult years.
The long quest to identify what drives the social phenomenon of the art collector has yielded various explanations. Early psychologists explained the collector psyche as motivated by the need for physical security, distinction, immortality and knowledge.
Sigmund Freud explained art collecting as an inner reaction to personal grief, and an attempt to impose order on a chaotic world. Freud himself collected more than 4,000 antiquities, most of which were distinctly phallic. Later studies by Werner Muensterberger argue that while personality differences give rise to various types of collectors, they all collect for the same reason, namely to overcome "old feelings of abandonment", and "separation anxiety".
In this sense, the collector surrounds themselves with items that function as "old friends", from which they derive a sense of comfort and harmony.
Despite the various explanations, one common strand prevails: collecting is fundamentally addictive. The American psychologist, Richard Belk, even goes so far as to compare it to drug addiction. The collector undergoes "altered states of consciousness produced through search and acquisition" and is prone to "mood swings resembling the euphoria and depression induced by chemicals".
Many believe that art collecting began when the medieval Catholic Church began amassing pictorial images with which to instruct the masses, but research shows that the practice was alive and well as far back as ancient Assyria. Hand-carved ushabti sculptures, wall frescoes and intricate mosaics were created to commemorate great battles and leaders, and were highly sought after by aristocratic families, whose collecting h abits were motivated by education, national pride and identity. Intricate and beautiful art within a society became a clear outward sign of sophistication to neighbouring cultures and this idea was picked up by later rulers, in particular, King Charles I, who turned to art collecting to cement England's position on the world stage in the 17th century. His goal was to amass the greatest art collection in Europe and he spared no expense, even employing experts to scour Italy for specific styles, working in secret to avoid the detection of rival collectors, like Cardinal Richelieu and the Grand Duke of Tuscany.
Twenty years of swapping, trading, buying and selling saw Charles create a collection unrivalled anywhere in the world, and while it remained a source of passion for him, Charles maintained the importance of building what would become the National Collection. Like the collection of the ancient Assyrians, it became an expression for his prospering nation, providing it a heightened cultural and political place among its neighbours. Despite the subsequent English revolt that saw Charles beheaded and his collection scattered, later rulers like Napoleon realised the importance of art in society, and learning from Charles' example, went on to re-establish the tradition of a national collection in their own countries.
Collectors can also be motivated by personal prestige. The 17th century was rife with intellectual snobbery, and a fine art collection was an outward sign of your fine intellectual and cultural heritage. With the growth of capitalism, intellectual snobbery grew into financial snobbery, and as large fortunes were suddenly made by those outside intellectual circles, art collections became an opportunity for 'new money' to gain prestige and acceptance among the 'old money'. A perfect example was Amsterdam , where simple farmers who found themselves wealthy from a driving local economy spent enormous sums purchasing the finest ceramics and still-life paintings by Vermeer and Rembrandt. This pattern followed throughout Europe, and to parts of America . One such collector was John Julius Angerstein whose collection can be seen today in The National Gallery, London . According to past director, Phillip Henry, Angerstein was "a new type of collector in that his acquisition of pictures was also an acquisition of prestige. His was certainly not the first collection which was intended to bring prestige to its owner; but as a self-made man of foreign birth 'considered deficient in Education' he may well have relied on his pictures to express something that he did not know how to express himself".
The link between art collecting and money is reinforced by tales of the Medicis, the Rockefellers, the Guggenheims, and today's top collector list, which reads like a who's who of international big business. The upper echelon is a mixture of collector types such as English entrepreneur Frank Cohen; Dakis Jouannou, the Greek industrialist; Donald Marron of Paine Webbe; and Wafic Said, a multi-millionaire investor who owns a range of work including van Gogh and Picasso.
Some collectors, like the publisher S.I. Newhouse, remain very private, buying seven figure artworks only in the privacy of their dealer's office, while others like Charles Saatchi make a public display of their collecting habits, buying in bulk in a bold attempt to create publicity.
Bill Gates made headlines with his 1994 purchase of Leonardo da Vinci's Codex Leicester for more than $US30 million but the world's current single biggest buyer of art is Sheikh Saud al-Thani, who has spent approximately $US2 billion buying art for five museums planned by his cousin, the Emir of Kuwait. His most notable purchase was $US1 million for Gustave Le Gray's photograph, Grande Vague a Sete.
While most of this activity seems like a simple exercise in wealth for those can buy anything they choose, there are those who are truly passionate. The cosmetics heir Ronald Lauder bought his first drawing, by Egon Schiele, with money from his bar mitzvah and went on to found the Neue Galerie in New York.
While the stakes are getting higher, the industry has benefited from a huge growth in new collectors, with the internet making art collecting easier than ever. Now a buyer can find detailed artist information, auction reports and make a purchase without leaving home.
As the pattern grows, the psyche of the collector remains obscure. People collect for various reasons, but most because they simply can't help themselves.