Pomp and Power – Carriages as Status Symbols
Call for Papers
Deadline for submissions: 30 March 2009
London, UK
12-13 November 2009
From their earliest use, horse-drawn vehicles have served as both a means of transport and as objects for ostentatious display and the expression of status and power. From the 1660s onwards this has particularly applied to state and dress coaches used for ceremonial transport such as triumphal entries of royalty, foreign potentates and ambassadors, the receptions of royal brides, the arrival at court drawing rooms and festive processions like the Lord Mayor’s Show in London.
To fully understand the Gesamtkunstwerk represented by carriages, their making, meaning and use, a wide range of disciplines need to be employed: the history of specialised trades and their manufacturing processes, the decorative and fine arts, economic and social history, and the history of technological development, transport and travel. And of course conspicuous consumption was not just expressed in the coaches themselves but in their entire equipage including horses & harness, saddle and hammer cloths, liveries for coachmen, postilions and footmen, and textiles used for coach interiors.
The aim of this major international conference is to bring together scholars from a variety of disciplines to explore the use of equipages, carriages and sledges and how they conveyed supremacy, status and superior personal taste. While the examples above focus on the 18th century, papers covering other periods are encouraged. We are particularly interested in papers dealing with English or à l’anglais carriages, i.e. those influenced by English design.
The Museum of London invites you to submit abstracts on the following themes:
- particular carriages, ceremonial entries and processions
- vehicles for different purposes: travel (particularly grand tours), hunting, children’s carriages
- comparisons between carriages in different countries
- artisans, designers and artists employed in coach making
- technical innovations
- the coachmaking trade and the cost of carriages
- particular coach makers and their clients, particular owners
- liveries of coachmen, postilions and footmen
- textiles used for the interior of coaches, hammer cloths, lines and saddles
- the breed and significance of carriage horses and their trappings
- the depiction of carriages in art and literature
- experiences relating to the use of carriages
- conservation and display of coaches
The official language of the conference is English. Each presentation should last 25 minutes. There will be panel discussions at the end of each session. Papers presented will be published on the web in the summer of 2010. If you wish to present a paper, please submit a proposal containing the following:
- One-page abstract of the proposed paper naming the presenter(s)
- Contact information: name, title, position, university or institutional affiliation,
- postal address, email and telephone
- A 75-100 word biography of the presenter(s), including recent publications.
Please submit proposals to: bbehlen@museumoflondon.org.uk
Deadline for submission of proposals: 30 March 2009. Notification will be made to
all by 29 May 2009.