Reframing Japonisme: Women and the Asian Art Market in Nineteenth-Century France, 1853-1914

Japonisme has generated extensive scholarship, but women's roles in acquiring and selling Japanese art have been overlooked. This volume highlights the activities of women collectors, shopkeepers, and artists, such as Clémence d'Ennery, who built a house for her collection and bequeathed it to the state. Travelers, salon hostesses, and art dealers played a significant role in the circulation and appreciation of Japanese art. Women writers, actresses, and artists were inspired by Japanese material to create their own works of art, and their collections are now in major museums.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 280 pages
Publication date: 02 June 2022
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

Japonisme, the 19th-century fascination with Japanese art, has produced a vast body of scholarship since the turn of the 21st century, but much of it overlooks the role of women in acquiring and selling Far Eastern objects. The stories of women shopkeepers, collectors, and artists are often absent from memoirs associated with the japoniste movement. This volume sheds light on the culturally significant but often overlooked activities of women such as Clémence d'Ennery (1823–1898), who began collecting Japanese and Chinese chimeras in the 1840s, built and decorated a house for them in the 1870s, and bequeathed the "Musée d'Ennery" to the state as a free public museum in 1893. A friend of the Goncourt brothers and a 50-year patron of Parisian dealers of Asian art, d'Ennery's struggles to gain recognition as a collector and curator provide a lens through which to examine the collecting and display practices of other women of her day. Travelers to Japan, such as the Duchesse de Persigny, Isabella Stewart Gardner, and Laure Durand-Fardel, returned with souvenirs that they shared with friends and family. Salon hostesses, including Juliette Adam, Louise Cahen d'Anvers, Princesse Mathilde, and Marguerite Charpentier, provided venues for the discussion and examination of Japanese art objects. Well-known art dealers, such as Madame Desoye, Madame Malinet, Madame Hatty, and Madame Langweil, also played a significant role in the dissemination of Japanese art. Writers, actresses, and artists, including Judith Gautier, Thérèse Bentzon, Sarah Bernhardt, and Mary Cassatt, drew inspiration from the Japanese material in circulation to create their own unique works of art. Despite their significant contributions, these women—and many others—have been largely absent from the history of Japonisme.

Weight: 640g
Dimension: 156 x 233 x 22 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781350282766