Fabricating the Antique

Neoclassicism in Britain, 1760-1800

Viccy Coltman

Fabricating the Antique
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Viccy Coltman

248 pages | 5 color plates, 85 halftones | 7-1/2 x 9 | © 2005
Cloth $55.00 ISBN: 9780226113968 Published October 2006
Between 1760 and 1800, British aristocrats became preoccupied with the acquisition of ancient Greek and Roman artifacts. From marble busts to intricately painted vases, these antiquities were amassed in vast collections held in country houses and libraries throughout Britain. In Fabricating the Antique, Viccy Coltman examines these objects and their owners, as well as dealers, restorers, designers, and manufacturers. She provides a close look at the classical revival that resulted in this obsession with collecting antiques.

Looking at the theoretical foundations of neoclassicism, Coltman contends this reinvention of ancient material culture was more than a fabrication of style. Based in the strong emphasis on classical education during this time, neoclassicism, Coltman claims, could be more accurately described as a style of thought translated into material possessions. Fabricating the Antique is a new take on both well-known collections of ancient art and newly cataloged artifacts. This book also covers how these objects—once removed from their original context—were received, preserved, and displayed. Art historians, classicists, and archaeologists alike will benefit from this important examination of British eighteenth-century history.
“Fabricating the Antique is a riveting account of the genesis of British neoclassicism. Informed by an astonishing command of objects and archival documents (many unpublished) as well as a searing critical engagement with the literature on the neoclassical, Viccy Coltman offers a decisive challenge to the idea that neoclassicism was just a style, a form of taste, or a decorative encounter with antique models. In Coltman’s discussion—beautifully and aptly illustrated—neoclassicism takes its place beside colonialism and imperialism as a social and economic mechanism of translation, imitation and dissemination as well as a style of thought.”--Jas' Elsner, Corpus Christi College, University of Oxford



“This is a well-argued book of considerable erudition that takes a refreshingly new approach. By foregrounding the library as the chief site of cultural formation for the English elite and underscoring the significance of classical pedagogy to the cultural orientation of the major collectors, Coltman helps us see these crucial figures in an entirely new way. A wide variety of historians will find this book useful.”--Christopher M. S. Johns, Vanderbilt University



“For the eighteenth-century British aristocrats and gentry considered in Viccy Coltman’s absorbing study, neoclassicism was not just a style but a way of life. Putting to use her profound knowledge of the archives, and her admirable ability to interpret surviving country-house interiors, she vividly illuminates how the classical culture of this elite group took on a material form. No previous work has explained so clearly the crucial role played by early education and travel in the creation of their personal libraries and their extensive patronage of the arts.”--Stephen Bann, University of Bristol



"As her study proceeds, Dr. Coltman's arguments gather force and fluency, and her chapters come alive. . . . A worthwhile, cogently argued book that quickens the reader's responses and awakens new lines of enquiry."—Ruth Guilding, Apollo



"This is an impeccably researched and beautifully illustrated volume, founded on a broad-ranging analysis of documents that relate to some of the most important movers and shakers of the eighteenth century. . . . Of major interest to art historians, cultural critics, and classicists alike."—Michael Squire, Journal of British Studies


"A sophisticated and welcome look at British eighteenth-century antiquarianism, targeted to (art) historians but essential reading for classicists reliant on early collections and publications. . . . The book offers new paradigms for thinking about what classicism meant to its elite British consumers."—Jeffrey Collins, Bryn Mawr Classical Review


"A useful study of an important period in British art history, both from a visual and cultural perspective. . . . Fabricating the Antique shows how Britain came to assimilate antique ideas into the national psyche in a way that still resonates today."


"There is much here to interest those concerned with the art and architecture of the period, with country house interiors, the social roles of libraries, and the taste for classical sculpture."  


"A gorgeously illustrated, evocatively written, fascinatingly detailed, and wonderfully nuanced account of the 'packaging and repackaging' of ancient material artifacts by British collector-connoisseurs, engravers, manufacturers, and patrons in the second half of the eighteenth century."—Emma L. Winter, Journal of Modern History


Contents

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

List of Abbreviations


Getting into the Classical Mood 1

1          (Neo)classicism in the British Library

2          “Worth looking at with reflection”

Monuments as Texts and Texts as Monuments

3          “Fitt to furnish 2 or more rooms”

The Influence of Sir William Hamilton’s Vase Publications on English

Country House Furnishings

4          “Under the sun there is nothing new”

(Re)constructing Pompeii and Herculaneum

5          “Familiar objects in an unfamiliar world”

The Cachet of the Copy

6          The Cream of Antiquity

Charles Townley and His August Family of Ancient Marbles


Conclusion
Select Bibliography

Notes

Index
For more information, or to order this book, please visit http://www.press.uchicago.edu
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