Christie's December Old Master Sale (2022). In art history, Old Master refers to any painter of skill who worked in Europe before about 1800, or a painting by such an artist. An old master print is an original print made by an artist in the same period. The term old master drawing is used in the same way. In theory, Old Master applies only to artists who were fully trained, were Masters of their local artists' guild, and worked independently, but in practice, paintings produced by pupils or workshops are often included in the scope of the term. Therefore, beyond a certain level of competence, date rather than quality is the criterion for using the term. 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. 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 Gemeldegalerie 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, Goya is certainly an Old Master, though he was still painting and printmaking at his death in 1828. The term might also be used for John Constable or Eugene Delacroix, but usually is not. Edward Lucie-Smith gives an end date of 1800, noting formerly used of paintings earlier than 1700. The term tends to be avoided by art historians 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.