The first part of this paper is devoted to the role of religious festivals, which played an im-
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portant role in settings up some core institutional features, but more important to cloak these structures through a related semantic. In the second part of the paper, the rise of the artisanal fair as a new type of business and development toward the art fair will be discussed, as the artisanal fair developed several important organisational features that were adopted in many different regions of the globe. The focus is here on the external reach of the art fair and its inter- nal organisation, which enabled the creation of prices and transactions. The last part of this paper is devoted to the rise of the contemporary art fair, and will pay particular attention to the early development, spread, proliferation and changing functions of the art fair in the last sixty years.