Beautiful Things : Sales Catalogues and the Private Collection in Fin-de-Siècle France / Valerie Mendelson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Mendelson, Valerie, author.

Series:

Literature and Cultural Studies E-Books Online, Collection 2026.

Literature and Cultural Studies E-Books Online, Collection 2026

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Art historians as collectors.

Art objects, French.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (252 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Other Title:

Sales Catalogues and the Private Collection in Fin-de-Siècle France

Place of Publication:

Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2026.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In Fin-de-Siècle Paris, private art collections abounded, and were celebrated and promoted in the lavish sales catalogues of the time as “bouquets”, “symphonies” and “stage sets” among other metaphors and their collectors were praised as “amateurs” or lovers of art. Valerie Mendelson shows that these anti-museological collections brought together arts of many differing periods, including contemporary art, enabling a comparative and conversational viewing that gave artists such as the Impressionists validation and support. This book offers a close and sustained exploration of how these texts and related photographs map the nuances of the amateur as artist with vivid examples drawn from industrial, intellectual and theatrical circles.

Contents:

List of Figures

Acknowledgements

Introduction

1 Describing the Amateur: Fin-de-Siècle Sales Catalogues

1The Amateur

2 Love and the Amateur: Gendering the Private Collection

1Valtesse de la Bigne and Méry Laurent

3 The Art Market: Choice and Taste

1Taste and the Amateur

2The Taste of the Amateur

4 The Private Collection and the Museum

1The Museum: Orderly Public Display

2Following the Guide: Walking in the Museum

3Wandering in the Private Collection

4The Wandering Path

5The Garden and the Long View

6The Musée Condé: Rewriting the Past

7The Scholarly Collection

8The Space of the Private Collection

5 The Ensemble: the Collection as Work of Art

1The Eclectic Collection

2Painting a Collection

3Metaphors of Books and Paintings

4Conversation

6 The Private Library: the Collection as Book

1The Bibliophile as Amateur; the Book as Object

2The Book as Object and the Bibliophile’s Creative Practice

3Photographs of the Cabinet de Travail

4Portrait Photography in the Nineteenth Century

5Dornac’s Nos contemporains chez eux

7 The Theater of Collecting

Conclusion: Moreau-Nélaton: the Private Collection Goes to the Museum

Sources Cited

Index.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Part of the metadata in this record was created by AI, based on the text of the resource.

Description based on print version record.

Other Format:

Print version: Mendelson, Valerie Beautiful Things

ISBN:

9789004745933

OCLC:

1603126239

Publisher Number:

10.1163/9789004745933 DOI