Antiquaries in the Age of Romanticism: 1789-1851 - Queen Mary ...

eginning of the end of the French Romantic Movement. French and British antiquarianism
began to change and as they changed they began also to diverge.
Elginism
The sympathy between British and French antiquaries that survived the war and
blossomed with the peace, was to diminish during the 1830s. In part this was because, as
antiquarianism developed in France, it took on its own momentum. Also, with the passage of
time the Revolution, the emigration and the initial impact of the British on France after 1815,
passed out of living memory. There was also, however, reason for a certain mutual hostility. This
was due to the enthusiasm that British and particularly English antiquaries, including Dawson
Turner, evinced for taking advantage of troubled times to snap up items for their own collections.
Beckford had been back buying in France as early as October 1814 when in ‘a kind of cut-throat
quarter’ of Paris he ‘discovered and disenchanted the famous stupendous and purest Gerard
Dou’. 165 Less intrepid and well-connected buyers, like Turner, had had to wait a little longer, but
by the 1830s a flood of antiquities, particularly the ‘salvaged’ contents of French and Flemish
churches and religious houses was pouring across the Channel. Carved wood, stained glass and
architectural fragments were the most popular items. Some dealers chartered whole ships and
filled them with plunder. Thus French antiquaries found themselves fighting on two fronts
against the vandalism of their fellow countrymen and the ‘Elginism’ of the English. The latter it
was believed was actively encouraging the former.
By 1832 the English menace was generally acknowledged. Langlois, who was trying to
trace the stained glass windows removed from the Rouen Charterhouse, wrote to Lenoir to ask if
he had ever had them. Lenoir confirmed that they had at one point been in his hands and he had
tried to buy them: ‘A mon grand regret je n’ai pas réussi; je crois qui’ils sont passés dans le
165
Quoted in Wainwright, ‘Lucifer’s Metropolis’, p. 84 . This was ‘The Poulterer’s Shop’ of c1670, now in the
National Gallery, London.
154