New Book online: PARVENUE. Bürgerlicher Aufstieg im Spiegel der Objektkultur im 18. Jahrhundert
Georg Erdman Rosenberg: Courtyard façade of the Hagenskov manor house, formerly Frederiksgave, The Danish Research Centre for Manorial Studies
This publication is the result of a multi-year project funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, in which the Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, the Fresenius University Berlin/AMD Department of Design, the German Textile Museum Krefeld, the Museum Burg Linn and the Hetjens – Deutsches Keramikmuseum are involved.
Eighteenth-century social climbers, the so-called parvenus, were social actors who increasingly relied on the use of material culture to facilitate their social advancement in the competitive societies of the early modern period. This included building and rebuilding, interior design and portraiture, garden design and textile art. When it came to representation through art and architecture, the parvenus’s central challenge was to choose objects appropriately, either for the purpose of adaptation or distinction. These works of art are therefore instruments of a hitherto rarely recognised process of identity creation and self-assurance on the part of their owners. The material culture of social climbers was examined in the joint project from an art historical and social science perspective. Focusing on parvenus in the Lower Rhine region, Hamburg and Copenhagen, including the manor houses in Wandsbek, Ahrensburg, Lindenborg and Frederiksgave/Hagenskov, the following aspects were investigated
– What was the significance of objects for social advancement?
– What selection criteria were applied to the artworks (especially in the context of the discourse on the formation of taste)?
– What selection criteria were applied to artists, especially in the context of discourses on the formation of taste?
This book will be of interest not only to art historians but also to sociologists, historians and philosophers of all kinds.
PARVENUE. Bürgerlicher Aufstieg im Spiegel der Objektkultur im 18. Jahrhundert, edited by Julia Trinkert and Philipp Zitzlsperger. Dresden 2023 (Open Access: https://doi.org/10.11588/arthistoricum.1204 ).
Further information on the joint project can be found here: https://parvenue.phil.hhu.de/