Title:
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British dealers and the making of the Anglo-Gallic interior 1785-1853
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This thesis examines the development, role and influence of British dealers in French
decorative art between 1785 and 1853. It departs from the conventional art historical
perspective of antiquarianism, as posited by Wainwright and Westgarth, repositioning
the dealer not simply as a retailer, instrumental in transforming the decorative art of
eighteenth-century France into the cherished 'antique', but as a producer. By analysing
the new furniture, bronzework and refashioned porcelain made by dealers from the
perspective of the nineteenth-century patron and in the context of the interiors for which
it was made, it becomes clear that far from being 'inauthentic' or 'fake', dealers created
an innovative Anglo-Gallic aesthetic with its own objects, language and value, which
combined the heritage of eighteenth-century French collecting taste with British
preference. This was known and understood by contemporaries as 'Louis XIV' style.
Part I of this thesis argues that Francophile collecting practice in Britain was
transformed in the first half of the nineteenth century as dealers changed elite
perception to embrace the consumption of the old and the Anglo-Gallic as well as the
new. To sustain that taste, dealers established London as a rival to Paris, a vital entrepot for the trade in French decorative art. The shop, a treasure house of opulence and
colour, showcased the Anglo-Gallic interior in all its potential, legitimizing the old
through modernity. A study of the Wanstead House sale traces the formation and
dispersal, orchestrated by the dealer, of one of the foremost Anglo-Gallic interiors of
the period. P31t II analyses the furniture, bronzework and porcelain and the interiors
which dealers created. Rather than a failed representation of the eighteenth century,
their work emerges as a deliberate synthesis of British and French taste targeted to
appeal to British taste and usage. Until the 1840s, dealers had primacy of knowledge
but new works of reference and the public exhibitions of the early 1850s led to greater
understanding of the decorative arts among a new plutocratic collecting class. While
the Great Exhibition of 1851 represented the apogee of 'Louis XIV' style, it also
challenged the future of the Anglo-Gallic interior.
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