Description
| Product ID: | 9781108478847 |
| Product Form: | Hardback |
| Country of Manufacture: | GB |
| Title: | The Purchase of the Past |
| Subtitle: | Collecting Culture in Post-Revolutionary Paris c.1790–1890 |
| Authors: | Author: Tom Stammers |
| Page Count: | 370 |
| Subjects: | History of art, History of art & design styles: c 1800 to c 1900, European history, History, Social and cultural history, Material culture, European history, Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900, Social & cultural history, Material culture, France, c 1700 to c 1800, c 1800 to c 1900 |
| Description: | Select Guide Rating Surveying the collecting culture from the French Revolution to the Belle Époque, this study explores how material things became a central means by which the past was accessed and imagined in nineteenth-century Paris, revealing how the Revolution triggered the rise of a new market for antiques and new struggles over the custody of France's heritage. Offering a broad and vivid survey of the culture of collecting from the French Revolution to the Belle Époque, The Purchase of the Past explores how material things became a central means of accessing and imagining the past in nineteenth-century France. By subverting the monarchical establishment, the French Revolution not only heralded the dawn of the museum age, it also threw an unprecedented quantity of artworks into commercial circulation, allowing private individuals to pose as custodians and saviours of the endangered cultural inheritance. Through their common itineraries, erudition and sociability, an early generation of scavengers established their own form of ''private patrimony'', independent from state control. Over a century of Parisian history, Tom Stammers explores collectors'' investments – not just financial but also emotional and imaginative – in historical artefacts, as well as their uncomfortable relationship with public institutions. In so doing, he argues that private collections were a critical site for salvaging and interpreting the past in a post-revolutionary society, accelerating but also complicating the development of a shared national heritage. |
| Imprint Name: | Cambridge University Press |
| Publisher Name: | Cambridge University Press |
| Country of Publication: | GB |
| Publishing Date: | 2020-06-25 |
