Travel, Collecting, and Museums of Asian Art in Nineteenth-Century Paris

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Travel, Collecting, and Museums of Asian Art in Nineteenth-Century Paris examines a history of contact between modern Europe and East Asia through three collectors: Henri Cernuschi, Emile Guimet, and Edmond de Goncourt. Drawing on a wealth of material including European travelogues of the East and Asian reports of the West, Ting Chang explores the politics of mobility and cross-cultural encounter in the nineteenth century. This book takes a new approach to museum studies and institutional critique by highlighting what is missing from the existing scholarship -- the foreign labors, social relations, and somatic experiences of travel that are constitutive of museums yet left out of their histories. The author explores how global trade and monetary theory shaped Cernuschi's collection of archaic Chinese bronze. Exchange systems, both material and immaterial, determined Guimet's museum of religious objects and Goncourt's private collection of Asian art. Bronze, porcelain, and prints articulated the shifting relations and frameworks of understanding between France, Japan, and China in a time of profound transformation. Travel, Collecting, and Museums of Asian Art in Nineteenth-Century Paris thus looks at what Asian art was imagined to do for Europe. This book will be of interest to scholars and students interested in art history, travel imagery, museum studies, cross-cultural encounters, and modern transnational histories. Cover Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Contents List of Illustrations Introduction A Concise Review of Studies of Western Collections and Museums Notes 1 The Historical Terms of Euro-Asian Object Acquisition Nineteenth-Century Asian Travel Accounts of Europe Japanese Travel Accounts Chinese Travel Writing Notes 2 Gold, Silver, and Bronze: Cernuschi’s Collection and Reappraisals of Europe and Asia A Fresh Approach to the Musée Cernuschi A Profile of Cernuschi Manifold Impressions of Japan and China Conditions of Collecting Metals and Global Monetary Histories Contact and Historiography Shifting Frames of Interpretation in Europe Shifting Frames of Interpretation in Asia Conclusion Notes 3 The Labor of Travel: Guimet and Régamey in Asia Travel and Representation Notes 4 Equivalence and Inversion: France, Japan, and China in Goncourt’s Cabinet Collection and Dissolution Literary Scholarship on Goncourt Theory and Practice: A Collection Within a Collection The Market for Asian Objects Functions of Chinoiserie Functions of Asia Goncourt’s Polymorphic Narratives Desire and Fantasy Collections and Museums Display Notes Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index