Artists trying to earn a living before these days of government grants, international art fairs and global cultural celebrity were at the mercy of the people holding the purse strings. Teaching was (and remains) a way of getting by, but for the premodern artist, real security depended largely on catching the eye of the wealthy.

It's possible to distinguish between the two historical roles of collector and patron of the arts, albeit the line between them is somewhat blurred today. Patronage often involved a trade-off on the part of the artist: creative freedom exchanged for material security. Patrons commissioned according to their own tastes and rejected or had reworked pieces that failed to match their expectations. Often the artist's vision would be compromised; at worst it would be stifled altogether. (For example, conformity with official iconography was the price of approbation by the French Academy of Painting and Sculpture during the reign of Louis XIV -- see the article below and The Japan Times Aug. 7.)

In contrast, the collector, rather than compelling the artist to produce to order, merely selected what he liked from among completed works. Also, unlike the patron, the collector often cast his net widely, perhaps focusing on the works of an era or a country, rather than those of an individual artist or a group. The most comprehensive collections are an invaluable record of the artistic output of an era -- and are wonderfully revealing of the collectors who assembled them.