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Barbara Lasic

Faculty, MA in Fine and Decorative Art and Design, London

PhD, The University of Manchester / Sotheby's Institute of Art
MA, 
The University of Manchester
DEUG, English Literature and History: Université Denis Diderot, Paris 7

Barbara has published on the subject of French decorative arts, the history of taste and the history of collecting, and museum architecture. Her research interests include the production and consumption of French decorative arts, 1650-1900, the private and institutional collecting and display of French art, and the intersection of the art market and curatorial practice in the early twentieth century. Prior to her academic career, Barbara worked at the Victoria and Albert Museum as part of the curatorial team involved in the redevelopment of the Europe: 1600-1800 galleries, and she held curatorial positions at the Wellcome Trust and the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich.

Barbara Lasic
  • Professional Affiliations

    Professional Affiliations

    Member, International Council of Museums (ICOM)

    Member, The Furniture History Society

    Member, The Decorative Arts Society

    Trustee, The Furniture History Society, 2017-2020

    External Examiner, BA in Art History, The Open University, 2017-2022
  • Publications

    Publications

    Books

    Barbara Lasic and Jeremy Howard (eds), A Cultural History of Collecting in the Age of Enlightenment (Bloomsbury Academic, 2023)

    Book Chapters

    'A Treasure of Riches and Curiosities’: Politics of display at the Garde-Meuble de la Couronne, 1680–1789’ in P. Bianchi, Displaying Art in the Early Modern Period (1450–1750): Exhibiting Practices and Exhibition Spaces (Routledge, 2022)

    ‘Motifs in furniture’ in C. Anderson, A Cultural History of Furniture in the Eighteenth Century (Bloomsbury Academic, 2022).

    ‘Fashion and Ethnicity in the Enlightenment’ in P. McNeil, A Cultural History of Fashion in the Long Eighteenth Century, (Bloomsbury Academic, 2017).

    “Madame de Pompadour”, “The Serilly Cabinet”, “The Art of Writing” in Elizabeth Miller & Hilary Young (eds), The Arts of Living, (London: V&A Publishing, 2015).

    ‘Acquiring and displaying replicas at the South Kensington Museum, 1854-1899: ‘the next best thing’’ in M. Aldrich (ed.), ‘Authenticating Art Works: Studies in the Art
    Object’
    (London: Lund Humphries, 2012).

    Articles

    ‘Baron William Hope, Collector and Connoisseur (Provisional Title)’, Journal of Nobility Studies, 30 (forthcoming 2023).

    ‘Going East: the Hertford-Wallace Collection at Bethnal Green, 1872-1975’, Journal of the History of Collections, 26, 2 (2014).

    ‘‘Dignity and Graciousness’: Mewès and Davis and the creation of tous les Louis period rooms’, Furniture History, XLVIII (2012).

    ‘Gargoyles and Shadows: Gothic Architecture and 19th-century Photography’, V&A Magazine, 21 (March 2010), p. 19.

    ‘Architecture et Photographie au 19ème siècle’, Art et Métiers du Livre 276 (January 2010), p. 44-53

    ‘Splendid Patriotism: Richard Wallace and the Construction of the Wallace Collection’, Journal of the History of Collections, 21, 2 (November 2009), pp. 173-182.

    ‘A Display of Opulence. Alfred de Rothschild and the Visual Recording of Halton House’, Furniture History, 40 (2004).
  • Conferences/Lectures

    Conferences/Lectures

    ‘Faire cas du beau et convoiter l’utile: l’iconographie des Fables d’Esope et de La Fontaine dans les arts décoratifs des dix-huitième et dix-neuvième siècles’, Festival de l’Histoire de l’Art, Château de Fontainebleau, June 2022.

    ‘A Treasure of Riches and Curiosities’: Politics of display at the Garde-Meuble de la Couronne, 1680–1789’, AAH Annual Conference, April 2021.

    ‘A Transatlantic ‘fauve de la curiosité’: new light on the Career of Edouard Jonas, Art Dealer and Curator’, The Wallace Collection, November 2019

    ‘Opulence by Design: Mewes and Davis and the Reconstruction of the Ancien Régime at the turn of the Nineteenth-Century”, De l’immeuble à la petite cuillère. L’architecture, le décor, l’objet Conference, University of Strasbourg,March 2019.

    ‘The Art of Beauty’, The Wellcome Trust, London, April 2018

    ‘A Transatlantic ‘fauve de la curiosité’: new light on the Career of Edouard Jonas, Art Dealer and Curator’, Authority, Attribution, and the Politics of Connoisseurship Workshop, Durham University, 19-20 May 2016.

    ‘Dangerous Liaisons: The Art of Make-Up in the Eighteenth Century’, The Wellcome Trust, London, 24 March 2016.

    ‘Crafty Tales: Aesop’s Fables and the Late Nineteenth-Century British Interior’, Annual Conference of the Société Française des Etudes Victoriennes et Edouardiennes, Université Paris Diderot, Paris, 4-5 February 2016.

    ‘De Bons Citoyens: John and Josephine Bowes’ collecting of French revolutionary ephemera’, History of Collecting and Displays Seminar Series, Institute of Historical Research, Senate House, London, 2 February 2015.

    ‘The evolution and dissemination of draped ‘tent rooms’ in France, 1770-1840’, Decorative Arts and Phenomenology Conference, Kellogg College, University of Oxford, 4 December 2014.

    ‘Une élégante simplicité: un portrait de Rose Bertin par Joseph Boze’, Rose Bertin Conference, Archives Nationales, Hôtel de Soubise, Paris, 17 December 2013

    ‘Échanges franco-anglais: les premières sociétés photographiques et les premières expositions à Londres et à Paris (1851-1857)’, Festival de l’Histoire de l’Art, Château de Fontainebleau, 2 June 2013.

    ‘Salon Tales: A set of mid-eighteenth-century panelling depicting the Fables of Aesop in the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum’, Furniture History Research Seminar, the Wallace Collection, 23 November 2012.

    ‘The Minutoli collection of photographs in the Victoria and Albert Museum’, Festival de l’Histoire de l’Art, Château de Fontainebleau, 1-3 June 2012.

    ‘Displacing and Reviving the Louis in turn of the century plutocratic interiors’, 9th European Social Science History Conference Glasgow, 11-14 April 2012

    ‘Imagined Ethnographies: Jean-Baptiste Le Prince's Russeries and the consumption of Russia in eighteenth-century France’. Fashioning the Early Modern Conference, Stockholm University, 30 November – 1 December 2011.

    ‘Princely pursuits : the collecting practices of the Camondo Family’. History of Collecting and Displays Seminars Series, Institute of Historical Research, 27 June 2011.

    ‘Un besoin qui seul nous dérobe au present: collecting and (re) constructing the Ancien Régime in 19th-century France and Britain’. Acteurs, enjeux, formes et pratiques de la collection de 1850 à nos jours conference. Musée de la Chasse, Paris, 10-12 March 2011.

    ‘Memorialized’, Interior Wor[l]ds Conference, School of Architecture, Politechnico di Milano, Milan, 4-6 October 2010.

    ‘Recycling and Re-fashioning the Grand-Siècle in Paris and London, 1750-1830’. Recycling Waste and Luxury Conference, Université Paris Diderot, Paris, 22-23 June 2010.

    'A Most Perfect Museum': The Foundation of the Wallace Collection, 1871–1900. Museums and Biographies Conference, National Gallery, London. 11-12 September 2009.

    ‘Boudoirs or shrines? Late nineteenth-century interiors and the cult of the French Ancien Régime’. Living in the Past, The Modern Interiors Research Centre's 6th annual conference, Kingston University, 14-15 May 2009.

    Retour vers le Bel-Age’: Alfred de Rothschild and the collecting of eighteenth-century French decorative arts. Society of Dix-Neuviémistes Annual Conference, University of Bristol, forthcoming 27-29 March 2009.

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