Silks for the Crown: five partnerships of merchant manufacturers in eighteenth-century Lyon

D204 Modern History;DC France

Dato, Moïra ; Miller, Lesley

University:University of Glasgow

Department:School of Culture and Creative Arts

关键词: Textile, silk, furnishing, costume, decorative arts, craftsmanship, commerce, dress and textile history, economic history, social history, Lyon, France, 18th century, Ancien-Régime.;   

Others  :  http://theses.gla.ac.uk/7970/1/2016datomres1.pdf

来源: University of Glasgow

【 摘 要 】

Silks were omnipresent in the eighteenth century: for dress or furnishing, they were used in everyday life. For many French royal palaces silk was a fundamental component of their furnishing. However, only a few of them are known nowadays. Similarly, only few of the manufacturers and suppliers of these silks are well-known within the field of textile history. Most of them came from the city of Lyon, which was the main silk-weaving centre of Europe. This dissertation investigate the place of five partnerships which supplied silk furnishing to the French Crown, from 1741 to the French Revolution, in the context of eighteenth-century Lyon. It intends to shed light on the lives of the 23 men who formed these partnerships, situating them into the economic and social context of Ancien-Régime France. It examines how these merchant manufacturers, who enjoyed the privilege of being official suppliers of the Crown, fit into the silk-weaving guild and the Lyonnais society. Their background, career and social evolution are considered, in addition to the characteristics of their production. This work suggests that the position of royal suppliers required no specific level of fortune or social status, but that a great variety of men, with diversified profiles, accessed this charge.