This project owes debts to many kinds of things.
To the pounds and pence and the dollars and cents generously put in our pockets over more than a decade by the academic institutions at which our project emerged, was nurtured, and finally completed. Thank you to the Courtauld Institute of Art, London; St John’s College, University of Oxford; the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles; and Queen Mary University of London.
To Moleskine diaries, wall calendars, and university timetables that enabled us to plan research trips during the academic year and arrange rendezvous with each other. Thank you for fragmenting weeks and months into optimum lengths for writing short and not-so-short entries, and jigging time appropriately to fit those vital trips and meetings into the gaps between teaching and admin.
To trains both regional (Southeastern, First Great Western, SNCF) and international (Eurostar, TGV Lyria) for shrinking the distance between us and our objects of study and making the low-carbon, air-conditioned, clean, and cushioned experience of travel for field trips so enjoyable.
To planes for the flight you provided to far-off places (Germany, USA) to which some few of our chosen objects have migrated since the eighteenth century. Crushed though we were in “economy,” and conscious of contributing shamefully to the climate emergency, we acknowledge, nevertheless, that you miraculously brought us into the presence of things otherwise impossibly remote to us.
To our laptops, slick and lightweight, and the software installed on them. You provided files for our things, systems for organizing them, and letters with which to title and fill them with thought, the ridged plastic guide-keys—F(uneral Book) and J(ournal)—keeping us centered and on track.
To all manner of cups: china, Styrofoam, plastic, earthenware, and Thermos. You have been our constant companions in writing and provided the essential coffee and tea that has facilitated our conversations, discussions, and occasional arguments about this book.
To wine and wine glasses. You greeted us at the end of the many rehearsals and presentations of our project and stimulated seminar discussion from which we have benefited hugely.
To a whippet puppy (named Scout) whose cute and persistent calls for attention were a delight, a distraction, and a danger during the final editorial stages of the book.
Things have been vital to this project, but, even more importantly, we acknowledge our debts to the many people who contributed so crucially in different ways to this book’s making.
To curators, archivists, and librarians who gave us access to and shared their invaluable knowledge of the objects, documents, and other resources in their care. In particular, we thank Emmanuelle Brugerolles and Alice Thomine-Berrada at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris; Xavier Salmon at the Musée du Louvre, Paris; David Simonneau at the Musée Carnavalet, Paris; Maud Guichané at Fondation Custodia, Paris; Juliette Trey, then at the Châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon; Marie-Christine Grasse at the Villa-Musée Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Grasse; Antony Griffiths and Kim Sloan at the British Museum, London; Yuriko Jackall at the Wallace Collection, London; Juliet Carey and Mia Jackson at Waddesdon Manor, Aylesbury; Lee Macdonald and Lucy Blaxland at the History of Science Museum, University of Oxford; Bénédicte De Donker and Estelle Fallet at Musée d’Art et d’Histoire, Geneva; Charissa Bremer-David at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; David Pullins and Perrin Stein at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; and the librarians and archivists (whose names we sadly never knew) who hosted and helped us at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France; Bibliothèque de l’Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art; Bibliothèque Historique de la Ville de Paris; British Library; Archives Nationales de France; and Archives de Paris.
To our friends and colleagues who, by suggesting things for inclusion, providing opportunities for us to discuss our work, and challenging our assumptions and conclusions, have helped significantly to shape this book and fruitfully to delay its completion. Among them are: Malcolm Baker, Basile Baudez, Jean-Luc Bédard, Esther Bell, Markus Castor, Jo Cohen, Jeffrey Collins, Stephen Deuchar, Noémie Étienne, Mechthild Fend, Amy Freund, Peter Fuhring, Charlotte Guichard, Keren Hammerschlag, Melissa Hyde, Mia Jackson, Colin Jones, Ewa Lajer-Burcharth, Meredith Martin, David Maskill, Gay McAuley, Lesley Miller, Carole Nataf, Kate Nicholson, Stephanie O’Rourke, Camilla Pietrabissa, David Pullins, Mia Ridge, Julie Anne Sadie Goode, Harvey Shepherd, Perrin Stein, Richard Taws, Kate Tunstall, Francesca Whitlum-Cooper, Sam Williams, Joanna Woodall, and Michael Yonan.
To the great archivists and historians Philippe de Chennevières, Émile Campardon, Louis Courajod, Louis Dimier, Louis-Étienne Dussieux, Jules Guiffrey, Anatole de Montaiglon, and Georges Wildenstein, without whose pioneering work this book would not have been possible.
To Diderot and d’Alembert for inspiration.
To Gail Feigenbaum for being receptive to our project in its final form, to Michele Ciaccio for steering it through to publication, and to Greg Albers and Marci Boudreau for sensitively creating its digital design.
Things and people are united in acts of friendship: in the friendship that has been the bedrock of our own collaboration, and in our dedication of this volume to all those scholars, students, and compagnons de route interested in the eighteenth century.
Finally, we offer our heartfelt thanks to Mia Ridge and to Stephen Deuchar: the partners who so generously accommodated this book in the material culture of their own lives for far too long.
—Katie Scott & Hannah Williams