Description
Book SynopsisJaponisme, the 19th-century fascination for Japanese art, has generated an enormous body of scholarship since the beginning of the 21st-first century, but most of it neglects the women who acquired objects from the Far East and sold them to clients or displayed them in their homes before bequeathing them to museums. The stories of women shopkeepers, collectors, and artists rarely appear in memoirs left by those associated with the japoniste movement. This volume brings to light the culturally important, yet largely forgotten activities of women such as Clémence d'Ennery (182398), 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 serve as a lens through which to examine the collecting an
Trade ReviewAs Japonisme studies grow, Elizabeth Emery’s
Reframing Japonisme will gain adherents owing to the meticulous way the author has researched the field to open new insights on women’s role in promoting Japanese art and culture. Her detailed detective work demonstrates that women increased the availability of Japanese objects as they established collections and museums. This pioneering book will be used for years to come by those involved in expanding the parameters of the Japonisme movement in France. * Gabriel P. Weisberg, Professor Emeritus, University of Minnesota, USA and Managing Editor, Journal of Japonisme *
Emery unearths references new even to specialist scholars and her analysis of familiar images and texts reveals new, and completely compelling, insights. This book will fundamentally change the study of Japonisme. It is a huge accomplishment. * Christopher Reed, The Pennsylvania State University, USA and author of Bachelor Japanists: Japanese Aesthetics and Western Masculinities *
Reframing Japonisme’s aim is to credit Gisette for her considerable, if unusual, success as a collector and thereby revitalize the story of
japonisme and Japanese art collecting in the 19th century. Its tight storytelling and dissection of myopic narratives embedded in historical canons make the truism that “women’s history is just history” apply just as much to the art world as anywhere else. * Asian Review of Books *
“Through inexhaustible detective work […] Emery brings new perspectives to light that convincingly allow her to reframe Japonisme and the nature of the Asian art market in nineteenth-century France [in] an important and eye-opening contribution to the history of Japonisme and gender studies.” * Helena Kåberg, Journal of Design History *
Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgments Series Editor’s Introduction Introduction 1. “Come on up and see my Monsters”: Chinoiseries, Japonaiseries, and the Musée d’Ennery 2. The Market for Asian Collectibles in Nineteenth-Century Paris: From Department Store to Museum 3. Vitrines: From Drawing Room to Exhibit Hall and Museum 4. The Musée d’Ennery: The Reception of a Woman’s Museum in the Parisian Press (1893–1908) Conclusion Bibliography Index
