Editing Old Master (section)

==Period covered==
In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the term was often understood as having a starting date of perhaps 1450 or 1470; paintings made before that were "primitives", but this distinction is no longer made. The ''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]''  defines the term as "A pre-eminent artist of the period before the modern; esp. a pre-eminent western European painter of the 13th to 18th centuries." The first quotation given is from 1696, in the diary of [[John Evelyn]]: "My L: Pembroke..shewed me divers rare Pictures of very many of the old & best Masters, especially that of M: Angelo..,& a large booke of the best drawings of the old Masters."<ref name="OED">"old master, n. and adj." ''OED Online''. Oxford University Press, December 2016. Web.</ref> The term is also used to refer to a painting or sculpture made by an Old Master, a usage datable to 1824.<ref name="OED"/> There are comparable terms in Dutch, French, and German; the Dutch may have been the first to make use of such a term, in the 18th century, when ''oude meester'' mostly meant [[Dutch Golden Age painting|painters of the Dutch Golden Age]] of the previous century. ''Les Maitres d'autrefois'' of 1876 by [[Eugene Fromentin]] may have helped to popularize the concept, although "vieux maitres" is also used in French. The famous collection in [[Dresden]] at the [[Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister]] is one of the few museums to include the term in its actual name, although many more use it in the title of departments or sections. The collection in the Dresden museum essentially stops at the [[Baroque]] period.

The end date is necessarily vague – for example, [[Francisco Goya|Goya]] (1746–1828) is certainly an Old Master,<ref name=christies1 /> though he was still painting and [[printmaking]] at his death in 1828. The term might also be used for [[John Constable]]<ref name=christies1 /> (1776–1837) or [[Eugène Delacroix]] (1798–1868), but usually is not. [[Edward Lucie-Smith]] gives an end date of 1800, noting "formerly used of paintings earlier than 1700".<ref> [[Edward Lucie-Smith|Lucie-Smith, Edward]], ''The Thames & Hudson Dictionary of Art Terms'', p. 152, 2003 (2nd edn), Thames & Hudson, World of Art series, {{ISBN|0500203652}}</ref>

The term tends to be avoided by [[art historian]]s as too vague, especially when discussing paintings, although the terms "Old Master Prints" and "Old Master drawings" are still used. It remains current in the art trade. Auction houses still usually divide their sales between, for example, "Old Master Paintings", "Nineteenth-century paintings", and "Modern paintings". [[Christie's]] defined the term as ranging "from the 14th to the early 19th century".<ref>Now rewritten less succinctly [https://www.christies.com/departments/old-master-and-early-british-paintings-70-1.aspx to the same effect].</ref>

The relevant part of the large and important collection of the [[Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium]] in their main building in [[Brussels]] was renamed in recent years as the [[Oldmasters Museum]] in Dutch and English, and Musée Oldmasters in French. It was previously called the "Royal Museum of Ancient Art" in English ({{langx|fr|Musée royal d'Art ancien|link=no}}; {{langx|nl|Koninklijk Museum voor Oude Kunst|link=no}}).<ref name="officialsite">{{cite web|title=Musée Oldmasters Museum|url=http://www.fine-arts-museum.be/en/museums/musee-oldmasters-museum|website=Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium|accessdate=26 May 2016}}</ref>