Whiteness at the Dressing Table: Race, Gender, and Materiality in Eighteenth-Century France and the French Caribbean

Authors

Danielle Ezor, Southern Methodist UniversityFollow

Subject Area

Art History/Criticism/Conservation

Abstract

This dissertation examines how eighteenth-century women’s vanity items such as makeup boxes, snuffboxes, perfume vials, etui kits, sugar pots, coffee, tea, and chocolate implements and their corresponding consumables—makeup, perfume, coffee, tea, chocolate, sugar—not only allow for but actively construct white femininity, often at the expense of forced Black labor, in eighteenth-century France and its Caribbean colonies. Through a material approach to these objects and consumables, I argue that these conceptions of race and gender are present in the material and visual culture in an era when these ideas are widely debated, discussed, and philosophized, prior to their codification in the early nineteenth century.

Degree Date

Spring 5-13-2023

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Department

Art History

Advisor

Amy Freund

Second Advisor

Mimi Hellman

Third Advisor

Roberto Conduru

Fourth Advisor

Adam Jasienski

Number of Pages

484

Format

.pdf

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License

Recommended Citation

Ezor, Danielle, "Whiteness at the Dressing Table: Race, Gender, and Materiality in Eighteenth-Century France and the French Caribbean" (2023). Art History Theses and Dissertations. 18.
https://scholar.smu.edu/arts_arthistory_etds/18