Masculine furniture: a study of eighteenth-century French masculinity

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On May 29th last year, Emmanuel Macron welcomed Vladimir Putin in Versailles. Placing himself in this highly meaningful monument, a symbol of the Kingdom of France, he replicated the 18th century cult of a powerful male persona. He built his masculine identity as a performative part of his power. It is undeniable that our time is witnessing a more heightened awareness of masculinity. Leaders either use it to assert control and authority over others, or build an alternative one, made of emotion and public demonstration of feelings, presenting a new kind of male leadership. To fully understand today's masculine norms (their impact, where they come from and how they might have shifted), it is crucial to trace back to a longer history.My research project therefore proposes to focus on eighteenth-century French furniture as a way to grasp how masculinity was expressed at that time. As an element of everyday life, furniture is an active component of social and gender identity. Male studies are not new in British and American academia: whether they are general (Kaja Silverman's Male Subjectivity at the Margins) or focused on eighteenth century (George E. Haggerty's Men in Love, Declan Kavanagh's Effeminate years), we find plenty of books on that subject. However, they mainly deal with Britain. When it comes to France, few research has been made on the subject. In France especially, research on masculinity is very recent (Eprouver la Masculinité, Mélanie Gourarier, 2016) and only deal with contemporary society. French art historians seem to have overlooked the subject until now. More than revealing a point on how France deals with gender, it means that this historical past hasn't been explored through this lens yet. My goal is therefore to fill this gap in existing scholarship and to propose a reflection on furniture as an integrant part of gender identity.