@article{ART003379397},
author={Kim Hangyul},
title={‘Useful Luxury’: French Museums and the Historicization of the Senses from the Late Eighteenth to the Early Nineteenth Century},
journal={Korean Review of French History},
issn={1229-702X},
year={2026},
number={55},
pages={31-52}
TY - JOUR
AU - Kim Hangyul
TI - ‘Useful Luxury’: French Museums and the Historicization of the Senses from the Late Eighteenth to the Early Nineteenth Century
JO - Korean Review of French History
PY - 2026
VL - null
IS - 55
PB - KOREAN SOCIETY FOR FRENCH HISTORY
SP - 31
EP - 52
SN - 1229-702X
AB - This article examines the relationship between discourses on luxury (“luxe”) and the emergence of public museums in France at the end of the eighteenth century. Eighteenth-century debates presented luxury both as a source of moral corruption and as a stimulus to commerce, industry, and civilization. The French Revolution, however, politicized luxury as a visible manifestation of inequality and monarchical magnificence. Museums were consequently confronted with a fundamental contradiction: while rejecting the political and moral order of the Ancien Régime, they preserved and displayed artworks and monuments confiscated from the monarchy, aristocracy, and Church. This article first considers discussions of luxury in the Encyclopédie and Kersaint’s writings on public monuments, before examining the critique of luxury and royal patronage developed in La Décade philosophique, littéraire et politique. It then turns to the Musée des Monuments français and the writings of Alexandre Lenoir to investigate how objects associated with past luxury acquired new meanings within the museum. Whereas La Décade portrayed luxury as an Ancien Régime vice that subjected art to fashion and power, Lenoir reinterpreted luxurious monuments as historical evidence of past customs and of artistic and technological development. Within the public museum, luxury could thus be transformed from an object of political condemnation into evidence of civilization and a component of national memory. This transformation reveals the revolutionary museum as a space in which political rupture with the past coexisted with the preservation and historical reinterpretation of its material remains.
KW - Luxury;French Revolution;Musees de France;La Decade philosophiaue;Musee des Monuments francais
DO -
UR -
ER -
Kim Hangyul. (2026). ‘Useful Luxury’: French Museums and the Historicization of the Senses from the Late Eighteenth to the Early Nineteenth Century. Korean Review of French History, 55, 31-52.
Kim Hangyul. 2026, "‘Useful Luxury’: French Museums and the Historicization of the Senses from the Late Eighteenth to the Early Nineteenth Century", Korean Review of French History, no.55, pp.31-52.
Kim Hangyul "‘Useful Luxury’: French Museums and the Historicization of the Senses from the Late Eighteenth to the Early Nineteenth Century" Korean Review of French History 55 pp.31-52 (2026) : 31.
Kim Hangyul. ‘Useful Luxury’: French Museums and the Historicization of the Senses from the Late Eighteenth to the Early Nineteenth Century. 2026; 55 : 31-52.
Kim Hangyul. "‘Useful Luxury’: French Museums and the Historicization of the Senses from the Late Eighteenth to the Early Nineteenth Century" Korean Review of French History no.55(2026) : 31-52.
Kim Hangyul. ‘Useful Luxury’: French Museums and the Historicization of the Senses from the Late Eighteenth to the Early Nineteenth Century. Korean Review of French History, 55, 31-52.
Kim Hangyul. ‘Useful Luxury’: French Museums and the Historicization of the Senses from the Late Eighteenth to the Early Nineteenth Century. Korean Review of French History. 2026; 55 31-52.
Kim Hangyul. ‘Useful Luxury’: French Museums and the Historicization of the Senses from the Late Eighteenth to the Early Nineteenth Century. 2026; 55 : 31-52.
Kim Hangyul. "‘Useful Luxury’: French Museums and the Historicization of the Senses from the Late Eighteenth to the Early Nineteenth Century" Korean Review of French History no.55(2026) : 31-52.
