Preliminary Programme

I propose to present a case study of the personal cash-books of the Swedish Duchess Charlotte from 1787 to 1792. Drawing my analysis from this source material, my paper will discuss a princess’ financial autonomy, daily occupations and furthermore the female consumer habits of the Swedish court. Thus, I will contribute to the discussion on conspicuous consumption and the significance of lavish expenditure among eighteenth-century elites.
An in-depth study of a royal lady’s actual expenses was rarely made. Hence, I aim initially to clarify the fundamental matters on how the Duchess spent her money, what were considered personal costs at court, and what was provided for her by her husband and his brother, the King. The courtier and politician count Axel von Fersen the older remarks in his memoirs that “the Duchess had some debts, although she was not in the least extravagant”. According to the count, the reason was that her allowance was “too modest to suffice for her personal costs and garments”. Whether the Duchess’ debts were necessary or not is of course difficult to judge: nevertheless, the cash-books reveal that the Duchess provided for her servant’s clothing, boxes at the theatre for her ladies in waiting, interior decoration such as gilding and refurbishing, tuning of her harp − beyond the expected expenses such as her wardrobe, books, alms and gambling. (Show less)

Marie Laube (later Hackman) was born in 1776 in Vyborg. It was a small garrison town about one hundred miles north-west from St. Petersburg. Marie’s father was ennobled civil servant and businessman who had moved to Vyborg from Germany. Marie married her father’s business partner and fellow native J.F. Hackman and the couple got two sons. Both Marie’s father and her husband died accidently before her 32nd birthday leaving behind several factories, saw mills, ship stakes and a merchant house. She also inherited country mansion Herttuala, situated about four miles west from the city of Vyborg and town house in Vyborg. Marie Hackman managed this estate so well, that when she died in 1865 newspapers wrote that she was “the owner of the most solid firm in Finland”.
There is a vast archive of letters and accounts of Hackman & Co. Although this material concerns mainly business, there are separate private accounts and numerous letters dealing more private issues, mostly purchasing something for private use. It is also possible to track down where the assets for these investments came from. In this paper I will argue that St. Petersburg was the more important place of buying and selling goods as it has been noticed in Finnish history. St. Petersburg was not only the capital of Russia but also the capital of trade in northern Europe. There people from surrounding countryside could transform their crops into consumer products. On the other hand the town would have not survived without firewood, dairy products and livestock brought from Finnish villages that surrounded the city.
Country estates in Herttuala were close to Marie Hackman’s heart. She invested heavily on gardens and green houses, which were her “hobby” as she wrote in one of her letters. In Herttuala, which situated next to emperor’s private teacher baron von Nicolay’s mansion Monrepos, Marie Hackman realised the ideas of English landscape garden, where she entertained her guests in garden parties, socialising with other elite families who had their mansions at nearby villages. But Herttuala was not only a place for recreation. Cichory- and rope factories were situated at Herttuala. Constant lines of horses and carriages took the products of these factories to St. Petersburg in order to sell the goods and to bring back home wines, exotic food, clothes, books, furniture and china. Sometimes madame Hackman travelled to empire’s capital and spent some time there; she had friends and relatives among the court, although she was not the member of the utmost highest elite. This paper will bring more tones to the discussion about elite in Europe at 18th and 19th centuries. It will also show the importance of studying Eastern Europe as an essential part of the continent, though ideas, people and goods flowed from west to east and vice versa. (Show less)

Viewed primarily as objets d’art and the assembled achievements of elite connoisseurship and collecting, the contents of the country house have long been the subject of academic enquiry. Relatively little attention, however, has been paid to the full spectrum of household goods, or to the processes of accumulation: the manner in which the material culture of a family seat was continually created, reworked or more unobtrusively maintained.

This paper therefore draws upon the collection of bills and vouchers relating to Audley End, Essex, to offer a study of elite consumption during the later eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. At its centre is a consideration of the geography of supply, the shifting patterns of goods sourced from provincial shopkeepers and the metropolis by three generations of the Braybrooke family. That the account books distinguish between furnishings acquired for the family’s London residence and Audley End is also of significance. This provides an opportunity for analysing not only the patronage of town and country suppliers, but of the material cultures of the town and the country house. (Show less)