In 1400, Perugia had little home-grown artistic talent and relied upon foreign painters to provide its major altarpieces. A century later, this situation had been reversed with Perugino, Pintoricchio and Raphael all active in the city. By investigating commissioning patterns III Franciscan establishments in Perugia from 1390 to c.1527, this thesis identifies the circumstances leading to this change. It argues that artistic innovation in such peripheral places is often undervalued or automatically attributed to external factors. Focusing upon five Minorite establishments, the importance of local religious, familial and notarial networks on patronal decisions is newly evaluated. Geography-based models of the introduction and spread of ideas, particularly theories of centre-periphery and cultural exchange, are considered as a means of explaining Perugia's changing artistic status. The introduction analyses theories regarding the autonomy of peripheral patrons, the innovative potential of the periphery and the repetition of paradigms. It finds that existing models fail fully to acknowledge the periphery's contribution to artistic development which should be reappraised. Chapters 1 and 2 chart Perugian patrons' shifting preference from foreign to local painters and attribute this to changes in training, political stability, increased civic identity, and an aspirational humanist court. Chapters 3 and 4 assess the dominance of the Peruginesque style. They propose that Raphael's early success lay in his perfection of this aesthetic, along with female Baglioni/Oddi and Franciscan patronal support. This occurred in a temporary competitive vacuum, characteristic of places beyond the centre. In conclusion, some current theories undervalue the contribution of local patrons and fail to accommodate the innovative potential of peripheral places like Perugia. Ideas are generated in both places and influences flow between them through processes of exchange involving painters and patrons. Local patronal networks provide a matrix within which valid tastes are promoted independently of external pressures.

Grounded within cultural geography, this thesis focuses on the relationships between art collection and the fashioning of elite identities in the second-half of the nineteenth century. Through two detailed case studies of wealthy collectors, it investigates the ways in which the consumption of art served as a cultural medium through which collectors created distinct identities for themselves, so that collections may be seen not simply as mirrors reflecting Victorian culture, but as constitutive of that culture. Focusing on the geographical aspects of the history of art collecting, the study considers how subjectivities were crafted through negotiation of a series of sites and spaces, collecting networks and journeys. This focus on the spatiality of collections and of collecting identities enriches existing notions of class, gentility and connoisseurship. The empirical core of the thesis is a study of the collections amassed by two wealthy Victorians: Ferdinand Rothschild (1839-1898), an aristocratic and cosmopolitan connoisseur, who specialised particularly in Renaissance and eighteenth-century art objects, and Thomas Holloway (1800-1883), a millionaire businessman and philanthropist known especially for his collection of contemporary Victorian paintings. Through a close examination of the activities and collections of these two very different figures, the thesis explores how their identities and reputations were fashioned through their collections. Part 1 of the thesis provides an account of recent work on the cultures of collecting and the fashioning of class identities, with particular reference to Victorian Britain (Chapter 2). Part 2 considers the relationships between collecting, taste and the fashioning of identities, with reference to Holloway and Rothschild (Chapters 3 and 4). Part 3 examines the different means through which objects were acquired; focusing especially on the contrasting sites of acquisition, including the auction house, the private sale, the art dealer and foreign travel (Chapter 5 and 6). Part 4 focuses on display, considering how art objects were made meaningful through their location in particular places, from the public gallery to the private smoking rooms.

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Le langage iconographique des mains est un système conventionnel utilisé par les peintres afin de doter les personnages de leurs oeuvres de fonctions discursives, affectives et symboliques particulières. La lecture des gestes figurés nous a ainsi permis de révéler des nouvelles structures narratives. Les différents signes gestuels sont étudiés ici en fonction de leurs origines, usages, connotations et stylistiques dans l’art français des XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles. Dans l’objectif de comprendre le potentiel sémantique de la main et son implication dans les oeuvres d’art, nous avons sollicité des écrits issus de champs épistémiques multiples. Lors de ce travail, nous avons souligné l’importance de la chirologie, discipline explorant les configurations signifiantes des mains et leurs possibles applications. Les gestes picturaux ne fonctionnent pas uniquement de manière isolée mais sont impliqués dans des schémas d’interaction, raccordés au genre et à la composition de l’oeuvre. L’étude du langage des mains favorise le dialogue entre l’histoire de l’art et d’autres disciplines scientifiques, engagées dans des questions de perception, de représentation et de mémoire. / The iconographic language of the hands is a conventional system used by the painters in order to provide some particular discursive, affective and symbolical functions to their characters. In our work, we show that the analysis of the figurative gestures reveals new narrative structures. The different gestural signs are studied according to their origins, usages, connotations and stylistics in the French art of the 17th and 18th centuries. With the aim of understanding the semantic potential of the hand and its implication in the works of art, we referred to multiple epistemic fields. In this study, we underline the importance of the chirology, discipline exploring the meaningful configurations of the hands and their possible applications. The pictorial gestures are not isolated but involved in interactional schemas, connected to the genre and the composition of the work of art. The study of the language of the hands favours the dialogue between the History of art and other scientific disciplines,engaged in the questions of perception, representation and memory.

The relationship between Symbolism and Surrealism is well known yet scarcely documented in detail. This thesis aims to address this oversight by exploring the connections between these two movements, specifically through investigating their shared motif of the androgyne. The androgyne embodies the professed aim of each of these groups: the transcendence of the physical in favour of the ephemeral for the Symbolists, and the unification of opposites for the Surrealists. Equally, both movements have an interest in the occult, and the androgyne is a key image within the occult tradition symbolising spiritual unity, dovetailing with the Symbolists’ and the Surrealists’ goals. The androgyne will be analysed firstly within the context of alchemy, surveying the way in which it is portrayed in primary sources, and how this has changed in Symbolist and Surrealist art. It will also be analysed in the contexts of psychoanalysis and gender identity, observing how male and female artists portray the androgyne differently and why. The aim of this thesis is therefore two-fold: firstly, a comparative study of the iconography employed by these connected movements, to original alchemical sources, and also between the male and female artists of these movements. Secondly, it aims to create a more secure basis for the notion of alchemical influence on Symbolism and Surrealism.