The Marriage of Art and Commerce: understanding Philippe Lasalle's success in Silk Manufacturing, circa 1750-1789
The Marriage of Art and Commerce: understanding Philippe Lasalle's success in Silk Manufacturing, circa 1750-1789
Since the eighteenth century Philippe Lasalle (17231804) has enjoyed a reputation as the most successful designermanufacturerinventor in the world-renowned silk manufacturing centre of Lyons during the ancien régime. This essay proposes that it was through the conscious marriage of art and commerce that Lasalle made his fortune and arrived at his technological inventions, that his efforts at turning painterly drawings into textiles acted as the springboard for his major commercial commissions and afforded him access to the taste leaders of eighteenth-century Europe. Armed with a clear understanding of contemporary institutions and practices in academic art and textile manufacture the Académie Royale, the Manufacture Royale des Gobelins, and the Grande Fabrique at Lyons Lasalle drew fully on state incentives to expand upon and market ranges of French luxury goods. This proposal problematizes existing views of Lasalle who has remained largely a local hero, nicely contextualized relative to Lyons and Lyonnais activities but somewhat underestimated relative to his manipulation of other worlds. The thesis derives from detailed examination of Lasalle's known textile output from when he formed his first partnership in 1751 until he fled from Lyons at the beginning of the French Revolution.
Philippe Lasalle, silk, manufacturing
200-226
Miller, L.E.
1d9e0d68-293c-413a-9adb-6b5d4074dc75
Miller, L.E.
1d9e0d68-293c-413a-9adb-6b5d4074dc75
Miller, L.E.
(2005)
The Marriage of Art and Commerce: understanding Philippe Lasalle's success in Silk Manufacturing, circa 1750-1789.
Art History, 28 (2), .
(doi:10.1111/j.0141-6790.2005.00461.x).
(Submitted)
Abstract
Since the eighteenth century Philippe Lasalle (17231804) has enjoyed a reputation as the most successful designermanufacturerinventor in the world-renowned silk manufacturing centre of Lyons during the ancien régime. This essay proposes that it was through the conscious marriage of art and commerce that Lasalle made his fortune and arrived at his technological inventions, that his efforts at turning painterly drawings into textiles acted as the springboard for his major commercial commissions and afforded him access to the taste leaders of eighteenth-century Europe. Armed with a clear understanding of contemporary institutions and practices in academic art and textile manufacture the Académie Royale, the Manufacture Royale des Gobelins, and the Grande Fabrique at Lyons Lasalle drew fully on state incentives to expand upon and market ranges of French luxury goods. This proposal problematizes existing views of Lasalle who has remained largely a local hero, nicely contextualized relative to Lyons and Lyonnais activities but somewhat underestimated relative to his manipulation of other worlds. The thesis derives from detailed examination of Lasalle's known textile output from when he formed his first partnership in 1751 until he fled from Lyons at the beginning of the French Revolution.
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Submitted date: 2005
Additional Information:
This article is to be reprinted in a book of essays entitled 'Between Luxury and the Everyday: French Decorative Arts in the Eighteenth Century', Scott, K. and Cherry, D. (eds) Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2005
Keywords:
Philippe Lasalle, silk, manufacturing
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Local EPrints ID: 16374
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/16374
PURE UUID: 45d2ac05-43b6-4828-8f46-00cc78594339
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Date deposited: 29 Jul 2005
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 05:47
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Author:
L.E. Miller
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