Blunk, Julian
Parvenue: Bürgerlicher Aufstieg im Spiegel der Objektkultur im 18. Jahrhundert
Parvenus of the 18th century are social actors with a special orientation, as they were more dependent than others on the use of material culture for rapid career advancement in the competitive societies of the early modern period. For representation through the arts and crafts, their central challenge was to prudently moderate the use of artefacts for this purpose between conformity and distinction. As instruments of vertical social mobility that have received little attention so far, (art) objects and their identity-creating attributions of meaning therefore play a prominent role: they are the foundation of a social-historically flanked history of art and images.
