This study explores the interplay between money, status, politics and art collecting in the public and private lives of members of the wealthy trading classes in Brighton during the period of 1840-1914.
This study explores the interplay between money, status, politics and art collecting in the public and private lives of members of the wealthy trading classes in Brighton during the period of 1840-1914.
Chapters focus on the collecting practices of five rich and upwardly mobile Victorians: William Coningham (1815-1884), Henry Hill (1813-1882), Henry Willett (1823-1905) and Harriet Trist (1816-1896) and her husband John Hamilton Trist (1812-1891). The book examines the relationship between the wealth of these would-be members of the Brighton bourgeoisie and the social and political meanings of their art collections paid for out of fortunes made from sugar, tailoring, beer and wine. It explores their luxury lifestyles and civic activities including the making of Brighton museum and art gallery, which reflected a paradoxical mix of patrician and liberal views, of aristocratic aspiration and radical rhetoric. It also highlights the centrality of the London art world to their collecting facilitated by the opening of the London to Brighton railway line in 1841.
The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, museum studies and British history.
Arvustused
This engaging and beautifully written book achieves the impressive task of combining local and national perspectives, art history and social history, issues of class and questions of taste. The reader will enjoy stories about the varied lives and collections of five fascinating members of the middle class in Victorian Brighton.
Janet Wolff, Manchester University, UK
1. Introduction: Settings And Scenarios, Classes And Collections
2. The
Palace of Science, Art and Literature and the Mission to Civilize the People
of Brighton 1850-1914
3. William Coningham: Connoisseur, Radical Politician,
A Collector of Contradictions
4. How Henry Hill, Bespoke Tailor to the Rich
and Self-Made Man also Became a Gentleman of Taste
5. The Reinvention of
Henry Willett, a Collector of Collections and an Imaginary Museum
6. The
Pre-Raphaelite Collection of Harriet and John Trist: A Collecting Couple in a
Companionate Marriage
7. Final Reflections And A Royal Parade In 1877
David Adelman is an independent researcher in nineteenth century cultural history.
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