The Histories of Material Culture and Collecting, 1700-1950
About the Book Series
The Histories of Material Culture and Collecting provides a forum for the broad study of object acquisition and collecting practices in their global dimensions from 1700 to 1950. The series seeks to illuminate the intersections between material culture studies, art history, and the history of collecting. It takes as its starting point the idea that objects both contributed to the formation of knowledge in the past and likewise contribute to our understanding of the past today. The human relationship to objects has proven a rich field of scholarly inquiry, with much recent scholarship either anthropological or sociological rather than art historical in perspective. Underpinning this series is the idea that the physical nature of objects contributes substantially to their social meanings, and therefore that the visual, tactile, and sensual dimensions of objects are critical to their interpretation. This series therefore seeks to bridge anthropology and art history, sociology and aesthetics. It encompasses the following areas of concern: 1. Material culture in its broadest dimension, including the high arts of painting and sculpture, the decorative arts (furniture, ceramics, metalwork, etc.), and everyday objects of all kinds. 2. Collecting practices, be they institutionalized activities associated with museums, governmental authorities, and religious entities, or collecting done by individuals and social groups. 3. The role of objects in defining self, community, and difference in an increasingly international and globalized world, with cross-cultural exchange and travel the central modes of object transfer. 4. Objects as constitutive of historical narratives, be they devised by historical figures seeking to understand their past or in the form of modern scholarly narratives. The series publishes interdisciplinary and comparative research on objects that addresses one or more of these perspectives and includes monographs, thematic studies, and edited volumes of essays.
European, British, and American Musical Instrument Collectors, 1850–1940
1st Edition
Edited
By Christina Linsenmeyer
February 20, 2026
The contributors to this volume examine musical instrument collectors and their reasons and means for collecting: Who were they professionally and personally? Why did they collect musical instruments? How did they acquire their objects? What were their collecting criteria and aesthetics? Following...
Nordic Private Collections of Chinese Objects
1st Edition
By Minna Törmä
October 07, 2024
This book explores the ways in which Nordic private collectors displayed their collections of Chinese objects in their homes. This leads to a reconsideration of how to define collecting and display by analysing the difference between objects serving as decorative or collectible items, while tracing...
Chinese Art Objects, Collecting, and Interior Design in Twentieth-Century Britain
1st Edition
By Helen Glaister
October 04, 2024
This book explores the relationship between collecting Chinese ceramics, interior design and display in Britain through the eyes of collectors, designers and tastemakers during the years leading to, during and following the Second World War. The Ionides Collection of European style Chinese export ...
The Emergence of the Korean Art Collector and the Korean Art Market
1st Edition
By Charlotte Horlyck
August 29, 2024
Articulating the shifting interests in Korean art and offering new ways of conceiving the biases that initiated and impacted its collecting, this book traces the rise of the modern Korean art market from its formative period in the 1870s through to its peak and subsequent decline in the 1930s. The ...
Private Collectors of Islamic Art in Late Nineteenth-Century London: The Persian Ideal
1st Edition
By Isabelle Gadoin
May 27, 2024
This book examines British collectors of so-called Persian art (a broad umbrella term then covering a large portion of Islamic art) in the late 19th century, including ceramics, metalwork, carpets, textiles and woodwork. Based on a foundational event, the very first exhibition of “Persian and ...
François Boucher and the Art of Collecting in Eighteenth-Century France
1st Edition
By Jessica Priebe
May 31, 2023
While earlier studies have focused predominantly on artist François Boucher’s artistic style and identity, this book presents the first full-length interdisciplinary study of Boucher’s prolific collection of around 13,500 objects including paintings, sculpture, prints, drawings, porcelain, shells, ...
The Emergence of the Antique and Curiosity Dealer in Britain 1815-1850: The Commodification of Historical Objects
1st Edition
By Mark Westgarth
May 31, 2023
Rather than the customary focus on the activities of individual collectors, The Emergence of the Antique and Curiosity Dealer in Britain 1815–1850: The Commodification of Historical Objects illuminates the less-studied roles played by dealers in the nineteenthcentury antique and curiosity ...
Fashionability, Exhibition Culture and Gender Politics: Fair Women
1st Edition
By Meaghan Clarke
January 09, 2023
Fair Women was the Victorian equivalent of a ‘blockbuster’ exhibition. Organised by a committee of women, it opened to great fanfare in the Grafton Galleries in London, and was comprised of both historical and contemporary portraits of women as well as decorative objects. Meaghan Clarke argues ...
Female Portraiture and Patronage in Marie Antoinette's Court: The Princesse de Lamballe
1st Edition
By Sarah Grant
June 13, 2022
This comprehensive book brings to light the portraits, private collections and public patronage of the princesse de Lamballe, a pivotal member of Marie-Antoinette’s inner circle. Drawing extensively on unpublished archival sources, Sarah Grant examines the princess’s many portrait commissions and ...
Women and the Art and Science of Collecting in Eighteenth-Century Europe
1st Edition
Edited
By Arlene Leis, Kacie L. Wills
May 06, 2022
Through both longer essays and shorter case studies, this book examines the relationship of European women from various countries and backgrounds to collecting, in order to explore the social practices and material and visual cultures of collecting in eighteenth-century Europe. It recovers their ...
Nature and the Nation in Fin-de-Siècle France: The Art of Emile Gallé and the Ecole de Nancy
1st Edition
By Jessica M. Dandona
September 30, 2021
By the time of his death in 1904, critics, arts reformers, and government officials were near universal in their praise of Art Nouveau designer Emile Gallé (1846–1904), whose works they described as the essence of French design. Many even went so far as to argue that the artist’s creations could ...
The Design, Production and Reception of Eighteenth-Century Wallpaper in Britain
1st Edition
By Clare Taylor
September 30, 2020
Wallpaper’s spread across trades, class and gender is charted in this first full-length study of the material’s use in Britain during the long eighteenth century. It examines the types of wallpaper that were designed and produced and the interior spaces it occupied, from the country house to the ...