Art and the Victorian Middle Class: Money and the Making of Cultural Identity

This is the first study of middle-class collection practices in nineteenth-century England. It examines the Victorian art world from the perspective of the businessmen whose successes during the Industrial Revolution caused them to turn to art as a means of carving out an identity of their own that was distinct from the leisured existence of the aristocracy and gentry. Such patrons created a market for early-Victorian narrative paintings which nostalgically perpetuated the oral traditions of village life, mid-Victorian scenes which glorified the accomplishments and moral probity of urban dwellers, and late-Victorian eroto-religious subjects which promised escapist pleasures to the world-weary buyer.

Condition: Very good hardback in clean dust jacket with some light surface wear.