Jewish Collectors and Patterns of Taste (c.1850-1930)
Les collectionneurs juifs et les tendances du gout (c.1850-1930)

We are looking for contributions to an international workshop on Jewish taste and taste-makers to be held in Paris on Monday 22 and Tuesday 23 June 2020. The workshop has been organised as part of the AHRC-funded project ‘The Jewish Country House: Objects, Networks, People’, and fits within the strand of the project focused on collecting and collections, co-ordinated by Tom Stammers (Durham University) and Silvia Davoli (curator at Strawberry Hill). Organised in partnership with the National Trust, we are delighted to announce that the workshop will be held at the Musée des arts décoratifs and the beautiful Musée Nissim de Camondo- an exceptional site for both the history of collecting and Jewish social history- and will feature on the second day a trip to the Château des Champs (formerly the property of the Cahen d’Anvers family). Confirmed speakers include distinguished scholars in the field such as Dominique Jarassé, Emily Bilski and Elana Shapira.

The theme of the conference is Jewish taste and Jewish taste-makers in Europe in the period 1850-1930. We invite speakers to reflect on the role of Jewish collectors in the transmission of artistic ideas at a national as well as supra-national level, and on their contribution to the evolution of taste through cosmopolitan exchanges and cultural transfers. By considering various types of collection (paintings, antiquities, furniture, interior design, bibliophilia, exotica), we are seeking to understand the aesthetic choices, the cultural horizons and the social networks of important Jewish collectors, asking what was (or was not) distinctive about their engagement with art, history, style and civilisation. Alongside papers from academic researchers, we will also hear from curators of historic properties from across Europe.

Papers should be 20 minutes long, delivered in English or French, and the project will be able to contribute to some of your costs and accommodation in Paris. We intend to publish select papers from this workshop and future events in edited volumes related to Jewish collections and collecting.

For further information or expressions of interest, please contact Tom Stammers (t.e.stammersdurham.ac.uk) with a 200 word abstract for a potential paper. Closing date for proposals is Sunday, November 24th, 2019.