Abstract

This book is all about possession. It explores the significance of beautiful and engaging objects – chosen, acquired, personalised and treasured – to the people who once owned them. With over 300 works discussed, the book takes us on a dazzling visual adventure through the decorative arts, from Renaissance luxuries wrought in glass, bronze and maiolica to the elaborate tablewares and personal adornments available to shoppers in the Age of Enlightenment. En route the authors consider the impact of global trade on European habits and expectations: the glamour of the exotic, as witnessed in the lust for objects imported from the East, the ubiquity of New World products like chocolate and sugar, and the obsession with Chinoiserie decoration. They ask what decorative objects meant to their owners before the age of industrial mass production, and explore how technological innovation and the proliferation of goods from the sixteenth century onwards transformed the attitude of Europeans to their personal possessions. List of authors: Victoria Avery, Maxine Berg, Peter Burke, Melissa Calaresu, Helen Clifford, Amparo Fontaine, Carol Humphrey, Suzanna Ivanič, Jasmine Kilburn-Toppin, Mary Laven, Alexander Marr, Peter McNeil, Sophie Pitman, Julia Poole, Giorgio Riello, Ulinka Rublack, Katherine Tycz, Evelyn Welch