101 frantzeska papadopoulou skarp This new form of production led to a change in his business model. His clientele was no longer limited to emperors and wealthy patrons but included those with restricted financial means. The number of potential clients increased by hundreds of thousands. Printing allowed Dürer to produce an unrestricted number of copies with almost no cost and with no notable delays in delivery. There is yet another perspective that is of interest here, namely the fact that during this same period, Italian Renaissance cities generated the first markets for durable luxury goods.53 Goldthwaite claims that these were the origins of modern capitalism based on consumerism.54 Dürer’s impact is in contrast with this claim. While he is an artist employed by two emperors, and other powerful noblemen, he chooses to develop a market for those with limited financial means. The clientele he focuses his commercial activities on could in principle be anyone, anywhere in Europe. Choosing to opt for this broader market of anonymous customers came with a set of legal challenges.55 Technology enhanced the scope and dissemination of his authorship while at the same time increasing its level of vulnerability since the link between the author and brand owner and the end consumer was a weak one. This is somehow the price prints had to pay fitting in with Barthe’s theory on materiality.56 Prints were multiple, cheap, small in size and thus easily transportable. That also meant that his customers were no longer only emperors and nobility that had access to all necessary information on the work of art produced and a direct contact with the artist. There was thus a need for a stronger means of communication and identification.57 Dürer expressed an interest in creating a means of communicating with his customers, and that was made possible through his monogram. Prints including his monogram were not only an indicator of authorship but above all a sign of commercial origin. Artefacts produced in Dürer’s workshop, followed his quality standards and were produced under his control. By avoiding the use of middlemen and subcontractors in his production line he was able to 53 See Goldthwaite’s work in this respect, Goldthwaite, Richard, ‘The Economy of Renaissance Italy: The Preconditions for Luxury Consumption’ Tatti Studies in the Italian Renaissance, 1987, Vol. 2 (1987), pp. 15–39. 54 Federico, Etto and Pagani, Laura, “The Market for Paintings in Italy During the Seventeenth Century,” The Journal of Economic History, vol. 72, no. 2, 2012, pp. 423–447. 55 Pon, Lisa, Raphael, Dürer and Marcantonio Raimondi: Copying and the Italian Renaissance Print, 2004, pp.31–33.
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