Commerce

Auction houses

Auction houses

MIYAMOTO Bénédicte
The dismantling of collections attracted a growing audience to the auctions, which took on complementary roles as exhibition venues. Crucially, these urban landmarks enabled a social and visible valuation of artefacts. Behind the scenes, auctioneers offered services that professionalized the art market (as brokers, appraisers and upholsterers).
Bookshops in London

Bookshops in London

JETTOT Stéphane

London Bookshops are no longer seen restrictively as retailing and publishing venues where books were made and sold. Whether it be in the City or in the polite West End, they fulfilled a wide range of functions (mail, banking, politics). Their crucial significance in various social circles could be best explained by the connections to other public places such as coffee-houses, taverns, markets and many cultural institutions (clubs, libraries, antiquarian circles).

Bookshops in London

Clone of Bookshops in London

JETTOT Stéphane

London Bookshops are no longer seen restrictively as retailing and publishing venues where books were made and sold. Whether it be in the City or in the polite West End, they fulfilled a wide range of functions (mail, banking, politics). Their crucial significance in various social circles could be best explained by the connections to other public places such as coffee-houses, taverns, markets and many cultural institutions (clubs, libraries, antiquarian circles).

Merchant communities in European ports

Merchant communities in European ports

POURCHASSE Pierrick
A l’époque moderne, de nombreuses colonies marchandes étrangères s’implantent dans les grands centres commerciaux pour y développer les échanges entre leur pays d’origine et leur pays d’adoption. Les membres de ces communautés sont très mobiles tout en maintenant des relations professionnelles et familiales très fortes à l’échelle de toute l’Europe. Elles donnent naissance, en s’agrégeant aux populations locales ou en développant des liens transnationaux, à des sociétés cosmopolites très ouvertes sur le monde et à des formes de sociabilité originales caractéristiques des grands centres commerciaux à l’époque moderne.
Saint Domingue

Saint Domingue

WALTON Charles
This entry discusses the various forms of public sociability in pre-revolutionary Saint Domingue and how they became increasingly racialised. Despite European ideas about the unifying tendency of sociability, divisions existed along social, racial and gender lines.