A01=Lewis Ryder
art collecting
Author_Lewis Ryder
Category=AGA
Category=GLZ
Category=NHD
Category=NHTB
cultural authority
democratisation
eq_art-fashion-photography
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_new_release
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
expertise
forgery
high culture
imperialism
mass culture
museums
Orientalism
professionalisation
self fashioning
Product details
- ISBN 9781526177391
- Weight: 486g
- Dimensions: 140 x 216mm
- Publication Date: 28 Apr 2026
- Publisher: Manchester University Press
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
This book examines John Hilditch (1872-1930), a notorious collector of Chinese art who lied, hoaxed and manipulated in his struggle against museum experts to become a cultural authority. Previously overlooked as a pest with a dubious collection, this book uses Hilditch to interrogate how far the monumental social, cultural and political changes of the early twentieth century unsettled social and cultural hierarchies and how these hierarchies were remade. It shows how the cultural elites were forced to engage with the public and re-draw the boundaries of citizenship, expertise and high and low culture in response to unprecedented social mobility, the democratisation of culture and politics, as well as the effects of British imperialism which brought ordinary Britons access to antiquities as well as confidence to claim expertise over foreign cultures. The book will interest social and cultural historians of Modern Britain, museum scholars and art historians.
Lewis Ryder is Post-Doctoral Research Associate at University of Lincoln
