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6 - Allies of the Republic?

Inside the Sale of the Century (c.1870–1895)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 June 2020

Tom Stammers
Affiliation:
University of Durham
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Summary

This chapter is centred on what was widely seen as the sale of the nineteenth century- the 1893 dispersal of the Spitzer collections. Austrian-born Frédéric Spitzer in many ways was the inheritor of the salvage crusade begun in earlier generations, building up a brilliant array of medieval and Renaissance artefacts (including some faked and composite pieces created on his commission). This chapter explores the visibility of Spitzer in French print culture in order to interrogate the claims for private collectors as patriots, and the attempt by the Third Republic to make collectors into auxiliaries of national policy. The scandal surrounding his sale exposes the anxieties about the interplay of private interest and public institutions, the sensitivity about curators like Émile Molinier when they operated in the market, as well as the virulence of anti-Semitic hostility to Jewish dealers. Most pervasive was the wider fear that French heritage was increasingly snapped up and repatriated by foreign buyers, so that the 1893 sale could be alternately depicted as a triumph, a swindle or a defeat for French culture.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Purchase of the Past
Collecting Culture in Post-Revolutionary Paris c.1790–1890
, pp. 243 - 285
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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  • Allies of the Republic?
  • Tom Stammers, University of Durham
  • Book: The Purchase of the Past
  • Online publication: 01 June 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108781268.007
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  • Allies of the Republic?
  • Tom Stammers, University of Durham
  • Book: The Purchase of the Past
  • Online publication: 01 June 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108781268.007
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Allies of the Republic?
  • Tom Stammers, University of Durham
  • Book: The Purchase of the Past
  • Online publication: 01 June 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108781268.007
Available formats
×