Art dealer

They often travel internationally, frequenting exhibitions, auctions, and artists' studios looking for good buys, little-known treasures, and exciting new works.

[4] The art dealer as a distinct profession perhaps emerged in the Italian Renaissance, in particular to feed the new appetite among collectors for classical antiquities, including coins.

Others pursue careers as art critics, academics, curators of museums or auction houses, or practicing artists.

[6] To determine an artwork's value, dealers inspect the objects or paintings closely, and compare the fine details with similar pieces.

Some dealers with many years of experience learn to identify unsigned works by examining stylistic features such as brush strokes, color, form.

Smaller cities are home to at least one gallery, but they may also be found in towns or villages, and remote areas where artists congregate, e.g. the Taos art colony and St Ives, Cornwall.

Some galleries in cities like Tokyo charge the artists a flat rate per day, though this is considered distasteful in some international art markets.

Such galleries have a board of directors and a volunteer or paid support staff who select and curate shows by committee, or some kind of similar process to choose art often lacking commercial ends.