A Taste for Luxury in Early Modern Europe

Jon Stobart and Johanna Ilmakunnas bring together a range of scholars from across mainland Europe and the UK to examine luxury and taste in early modern Europe.
In the 18th century, debates raged about the economic, social and moral impacts of luxury, whilst taste was viewed as a refining influence and a marker of rank and status. This book takes a fresh, comparative approach to these ideas, drawing together new scholarship to examine three related areas in a wide variety of European contexts. Firstly, the deployment of luxury goods in displays of status and how these practices varied across space and time. Secondly, the processes of communicating and acquiring taste and luxury: how did people obtain tasteful and luxurious goods, and how did they recognise them as such? Thirdly, the ways in which ideas of taste and luxury crossed national, political and economic boundaries: what happened to established ideas of luxury and taste as goods moved from one country to another, and during times of political transformation?
Through the analysis of case studies looking at consumption practices, material culture, political economy and retail marketing, A Taste for Luxury in Early Modern Europe challenges established readings of luxury and taste. This is a crucial volume for any historian seeking a more nuanced understanding of material culture, consumption and luxury in early modern Europe.

Johanna Ilmakunnas is acting Professor of Finnish History at the University of Turku, Finland. She has published widely on eighteenth-century cultural and social history. Her most recent publications include Early Professional Women in Northern Europe, c. 1650-1860 (2017, co-edited with Marjatta Rahikainen and Kirsi Vainio-Korhonen).
Jon Stobart is Professor of Social History at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. His most recent publications are Consumption and the Country House: Elite Spending and Identities in Georgian England (2016, co-authored with Mark Rothery) and The Country House: Material Culture and Consumption (2015, co-edited with Andrew Hann). He is also Founding Editor of the new journal, History of Retailing and Consumption.

Display, Acquisition and Boundaries of Luxury and Taste - Johanna Ilmakunnas (University of Helsinki, Finland) and Jon Stobart (University of Northampton, UK)
Part I: Displaying Taste and Luxury
1. The Fabric of a Corporate Society: Sumptuary Laws, Social Order and Propriety in Early Modern Tallinn - Astrid Pajur (Uppsala University, Sweden)
2. New and Old Luxuries Between the Court and the City: A Comparative Perspective on Material Cultures in Brussels and Antwerp, 1650-1735 - Bruno Blondé and Veerle de Laet (University of Antwerp, Belgium)
3. Luxury and Taste in Eighteenth-Century Naples: Representations, Ideas and Social Practices at the Intersection Between the Global and the Local - Alida Clemente (University of Foggia, Italy).
4. What About the Moorish Footman? Portrait of a Dutch Nabob as a Dedicated Follower of Fashion- Yme Kuiper (University of Groningen, Netherlands)
5. Fashion and Luxury in Eighteenth-Century Germany - Michael North (University of Greifswald, Germany)
Part II: Making and Acquiring Taste
6. Taste Inequalities in the Art Consumption of Prince Nicolaus I Esterházy 'the Magnificent' - Kristof Fatsar (Corvinus University of Budapest, Hungary)
7. Making an English Country House: Taste and Luxury in the Furnishing of Stoneleigh Abbey, 1763-1765 - Jon Stobart (Manchester Metropolitan University, UK)
8. Between the Exotic and the Everyday: Sabine Winn at Home 1765-1798 - Kerry Bristol (University of Leeds, UK)
9. Books, Wine and Fine China: Consumption Patterns of a Brukspatron in Early Nineteenth-Century Sweden - Marie Steinrud (Stockholm University, Sweden)
10. To Buy a Plate: Retail and Shopping for Porcelain and Faience in Stockholm During the Eighteenth Century - Sofia Murhem and Göran Ulväng (Uppsala University, Sweden)
Section III: Crossing Boundaries of Taste and Luxury
11. A Taste for French Style in Bourbon Spain: Food, Drink and Clothing in 1740s Madrid - Nadia Fernández-de-Pinedo (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain) and Corinne Thépaut-Cabasset (Victoria & Albert Museum, UK and Château de Versailles, France)
12. French Fashions: Aspects of Elite Lifestyle in Eighteenth-Century Sweden - Johanna Ilmakunnas (University of Helsinki, Finland)
13. English Luxuries in Nineteenth-Century Vyborg - Ulla Ijäs (University of Helsinki, Finland)
14. Luxury Goods Beyond Boundaries: The Parisian Market During the Terror - Natacha Coquery (University of Lyon 2, France)
Bibliography
Index