La semaine de l'amateur. Le arti in mostra tra pubblico e privato nella Parigi di metà Ottocento

On the basis of archival evidence, this paper will focus on the market for the decorative arts, its collecting practices and the role played by artworks and artefacts in shaping canons of taste and value. Over the last decades of 19th century, a group of Parisian collectors used to give regular access to their mansions to friends and colleagues once a week. Collectors’ successful careers depended upon vast and intricate social and professional networks including collectors, connoisseurs, museum curators, art critics, dealers, mediators, advisors and craftsmen. All of them underpinned the same social, cultural and professional arena. The “semaine d’amateurs” was an occasion for them to enjoy some of the most important recent acquisitions on display. Collectors’ evocative homes exerted considerable influence in the field of collecting as they were widely promoted on the pages of the art journals, on the art books and on occasion of temporary exhibitions. Their narratives disclosed shared practices and rites and provided an immersive experience in history to selected guests. Abandoned in European mansions at the turn of the century, collectors’ display strategies were widely employed in exhibitions and museums in Europe and in the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.