Jon Stobart and Johanna
Ilmakunnas bring together a range of scholars from across mainland
Europe and the UK to examine luxury and taste in early modern Europe.

In
the 18th century, debates raged about the economic, social and moral
impacts of luxury, whilst taste was viewed as a refining influence and a
marker of rank and status. This book takes a fresh, comparative
approach to these ideas, drawing together new scholarship to examine
three related areas in a wide variety of European contexts. Firstly, the
deployment of luxury goods in displays of status and how these
practices varied across space and time. Secondly, the processes of
communicating and acquiring taste and luxury: how did people obtain
tasteful and luxurious goods, and how did they recognise them as such?
Thirdly, the ways in which ideas of taste and luxury crossed national,
political and economic boundaries: what happened to established ideas of
luxury and taste as goods moved from one country to another, and during
times of political transformation?

Through
the analysis of case studies looking at consumption practices, material
culture, political economy and retail marketing, A Taste for Luxury in Early Modern Europe
challenges established readings of luxury and taste. This is a crucial
volume for any historian seeking a more nuanced understanding of
material culture, consumption and luxury in early modern Europe.