A museum of souvenirs
Adolphe Thiers, collector of the nineteenth century
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 14904286 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Anca I Lasc (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2016 |
| Volume | 28 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 57-71 |
| Publication date | 2016-03-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of the History of Collections (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0954-6650 • E-ISSN: 1477-8564 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/jhc/fhv002 |
| OpenAlex | W2331575065 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
This essay examines the collection of copies after Renaissance artworks amassed by Adolphe Thiers in the private office ( cabinet ) of his hôtel particulier throughout the nineteenth century. It studies the varied techniques of reproduction that Thiers employed to build and – after the Commune – rebuild his collection in order to understand the multiple meanings that these copies held for their owner. Unlike photograph albums of Italian masterpieces, widely available from the 1860s, small-scale reproductions of Italian Renaissance works of art in watercolour or marble filled Thiers’ museum as a means of recording and bringing to mind his personal experiences as a traveller to the Italian peninsula and of restoring Renaissance originals – through their copies – to former glory. The reproductions purchased or commissioned by Thiers can thus be compared to what Siegfried Kracauer has termed ‘memory images’ – souvenirs of a past long-gone, mementos of a geographically-remote present and, at the same time, reminders of personal experiences.
Art · Art history · Cabinet (room) · Glory · Italian Renaissance · The Renaissance · Visual arts · Historical Art and Culture Studies · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · Visual Culture and Art Theory
| Citations per year | 0.33 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2020 - 2020 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |