Telling Objects: Contextualizing the Role of the Consort in Early Modern Europe. Jill Bepler and Svante Norrhem, eds. Wolfenbütteler Forschungen 153. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2018. 270 pp. €68

• Published in: Renaissance Quarterly Vol. 74; no. 1; pp. 275 - 276
• Main Author: Dunn, Caroline
• Format: Journal Article Book Review
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge Cambridge University Press 01.04.2021
• Subjects: Cultural identity; Marriage; Meaning; Personality; Renaissance period; Denmark; Austria; Europe
• DOI: 10.1017/rqx.2020.351
• ISSN: 0034-4338

Telling Objects (a collection stemming from the recent research project Marrying Cultures: Queens Consort and European Identities, 1500–1800) illuminates these trappings by clarifying the types of objects collected, inherited, and bequeathed by European consorts, their meanings, and their movement through courtly society. Many chapters highlight the role of gift giving, such as the ivory egg, a predecessor of Fabergé eggs, given by one princess to another not to commemorate their dynasties but to celebrate their bond of friendship that transcended geographic barriers and generations. Several studies highlight the shifting meanings of objects, or how personality affected the types of objects emphasized in collections. [...]Kociszewska's analysis of the Croix Palatine demonstrates how it was imbued largely with dynastic meaning for one sister but religious meaning for another.