{"product_id":"who-owns-beauty-hardback-9781509568611","title":"Who Owns Beauty? (Hardback) 9781509568611","description":"\u003cfont face=\"Georgia\"\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"6\"\u003eWho Owns Beauty?\u003c\/font\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"4\"\u003eBénédicte Savoy (Author), Andrew Brown (Translated by)\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e9781509568611, Polity Press\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003eHardback, published 19 September 2025\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e240 pages\u003cbr\u003e23.1 x 16 x 2.8 cm, 0.499 kg\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\"Bénédicte Savoy writes beautifully about beauty. From the sacking of the Beijing Summer Palace to the bust of Nefertiti, and from the 'Sistine Madonna' to the 'Bangwa Queen', \u003ci\u003eWho Owns Beauty\u003c\/i\u003e takes the reader on a series of journeys that follow the translocation of iconic artworks. The book maps geographies of extraction and desire, encountering along the way claims to possession, acts of looting, and pathways towards return.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eDan Hicks, University of Oxford\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\"Once provenance — the documentation of how things get into museums — was a sleepy corner of art history. In this intriguing book, Bénédicte Savoy shows how it has become one of the most challenging and interesting intersections of contemporary visual culture. In lapidary prose, she deploys insightful methodological advances alongside detailed, fascinating, and entangled histories of the fate of imperial subjects and objects at the hands of Western museums. Everyone concerned with the future of museums and what they contain needs to read this book.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eNicholas Mirzoeff, New York University\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Fertile\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLola Salem, \u003ci\u003eThe\u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003eCritic\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\"Intriguing\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe Irish\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e Times\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\"a bracing new book written by the French art historian Bénédicte Savoy\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe New\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e Yorker\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Savoy's useful and beguiling new book, \u003ci\u003eWho Owns Beauty?\u003c\/i\u003e, addresses itself not to the logistics of repatriating works of art but to the question of 'what happened to the places where they were no longer to be found.'... it is an object lesson—or rather nine object lessons—in how bright lines between right and wrong fade to gray.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe New York Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003eBeauty belongs to no one. But what about the objects that museums celebrate as great works of art: to whom do they belong? Do they belong to the places where they originated? To the cultures whose genius they embody? To the enlightened collectors who saw their value and appropriated them? Or to the whole of humanity which has access to them through institutions dedicated to their preservation? And if the latter, how can we justify the fact that some people are able to enjoy what is supposed to be a universally shared heritage while others cannot? \u003cp\u003eWe can begin to answer these questions, argues Bénédicte Savoy, by examining how these objects actually came to be with us and what their journeys reveal about our history and its violence and asymmetries, both symbolic and real. These objects have no doubt left their mark on the places where they arrived; they have also left wounds that are still raw in the places from which they came. The bust of Nefertiti, the Great Pergamon Altar, The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, the ‘Sistine Madonna’, the Old Summer Palace bronze heads, Watteau’s L'Enseigne de Gersaint, the ‘Bangwa Queen’, Klimt’s Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, the Benin bronzes: through the journeys of these iconic works, Savoy reflects on desire and domination, on rupture and restitution, and on the profound emotions evoked by beauty when it is laced with the pain of historical loss.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThis timely and highly original reflection on beauty, provenance, power, and loss will be essential reading for all those concerned with the preservation and restitution of cultural objects and it will appeal to anyone interested in art, culture, and politics today.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003ePublisher’s Note\u003cbr\u003eAcknowledgements\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIntroduction\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eChapter 1. The bust of Nefertiti\u003cbr\u003eCairo\u003cbr\u003eBerlin\u003cbr\u003eRestoring an international icon?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eChapter 2. The Pergamon Altar\u003cbr\u003eA translocation in spare parts\u003cbr\u003eTo take and to understand\u003cbr\u003eA model of reconstruction with a universalist vocation?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eChapter 3. The Altarpiece of ‘The Mystic Lamb’ by the Van Eyck brothers\u003cbr\u003eAn annexed heritage\u003cbr\u003eFrom dismantlement to reconstruction\u003cbr\u003eEvacuation, looting, restoration\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eChapter 4.  Raphael’s 'Sistine Madonna'\u003cbr\u003eThe advent of the public museum\u003cbr\u003eThe Dresden ‘Madonna’\u003cbr\u003eSaving or appropriating a ‘treasure of humanity’?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eChapter 5. The bronze heads of the Summer Palace in Beijing\u003cbr\u003eMoney, nation, heritage\u003cbr\u003eThe price of pillage\u003cbr\u003eRepairing history?\u003cbr\u003eSharing, giving back or leaving behind\u003cbr\u003eFull circle\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eChapter 6. Watteau’s ‘L’Enseigne de Gersaint’\u003cbr\u003eThe diplomacy of exhibitions\u003cbr\u003ePotsdam, the 1740s\u003cbr\u003eCrime, art, and punishment\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eChapter 7. The statue of the ‘Bangwa Queen’ of Cameroon\u003cbr\u003eA massive cultural extraction\u003cbr\u003eInvisible in Berlin\u003cbr\u003eInternational career\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eChapter 8. The ‘Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer’ by Gustav Klimt\u003cbr\u003eCollectors, donors, patrons\u003cbr\u003eThe world of yesterday\u003cbr\u003eDiscriminations, dislocations\u003cbr\u003e‘Ciao Adele’\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eChapter 9. Benin’s ‘Royal Treasures’\u003cbr\u003eHeritage moved, heritage replaced\u003cbr\u003eReconnecting through the arts\u003cbr\u003eIntellectual reappropriation\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eConclusion\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNotes\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003eSubject Areas: Art treatments \u0026amp; subjects [\u003ca title=\"See our other books on Art treatments \u0026amp; subjects\" href=\"https:\/\/freshlyprintedbooks.co.uk\/search?q=%22Art%20treatments%20\u0026amp;%20subjects%20%5BAG%5D%22\"\u003eAG\u003c\/a\u003e]\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003c\/font\u003e","brand":"Polity","offers":[{"title":"Brand New","offer_id":52460633555224,"sku":"9781509568611","price":18.28,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0730\/2037\/5320\/files\/9781509568611.jpg?v=1785456310","url":"https:\/\/freshlyprintedbooks.co.uk\/products\/who-owns-beauty-hardback-9781509568611","provider":"Freshly Printed Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}