Luxury and Power

Helen Jacobsen’s fine study of the material world of late Stuart diplomats richly documents their purchase of lavish furnishings, plate, tapestries and artwork for their embassies abroad, and their transfer of European fashion and artists home to England. Superbly researched, the book lays out just how an embassy was set up, from the appropriate house to the symbolic representations of the Crown, including the chair of state, royal portrait, and parade coach. While the Great Wardrobe provided some of the materials necessary for ambassadorial display, in a contest of conspicuous consumption English diplomats vied with one another to ensure that their formal entrées into capital cities and their banqueting equalled or eclipsed those of their predecessors and contemporaries. With the supremacy of the taste of the court of Louis XIV, whatever the politics and warfare of the period, both James II and, more surprisingly, William III wanted their diplomats not only to compete with the French in display but also to bring them the latest French fashions. As Jacobsen points out, diplomatic representation was theatre; art, architecture and moveables were the material representations of the court and power of the diplomat’s master

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