Analysis and Interpretation of the late 18th- and 19th-century Ceramics from the Hospital of Saint-Elisabeth in Antwerp.

Over the last two decades, it has become evident that material culture embodies certain dynamic, contextually meaningful, ordering principles. As such it plays a socializing role, which influences the way we understand and shape our world. This project aims to investigate the interactive role and value of material culture in the 19th century urban world, more specifically in Belgium.

In the past decades, 19th century contexts and material received very little attention in Belgium, unless it concerned prestigious materials, exceptional objects or architectural styles. As a result, most publications use an art-historical or historical approach of these objects. There are hardly any comparable studies of 18th and 19th century ceramics. However, in recent years, historians from the universities of Antwerp and Brussels have made several studies of the changes in consumption patterns that took place in the late 17th, the 18th and the early 19th century, the causes of these changes and their impact on the different commercial circuits. This research wants to start from and contribute to these studies.

In the 18th century, urban middle classes gradually developed a consumer behaviour which referred to the material culture, taste and lifestyle of the elite. An ever more volatile and fashion-conscious consumption pattern arose, in which one could opt for cheaper and less durable alternative consumer items. These were easily replaceable in case of change or loss of meaning, which led to innovations in style and material culture in ever shorter fashion life cycles. This happened in interaction with the growth of an industrial production, which drastically changed the character of material culture. In the new 19th century urban world, this interactive process most likely continued in close relation to the development of new forms of distribution. My goal is to investigate how these changes influenced the material culture of the middle classes in the urban world and how the consumed material culture and the dynamic universe of meaning of the middle classes interacted. In order to do so, I study the material culture of the 19th century urban middle classes as it has been found in their consumption refuse in archaeological contexts. The archaeological data is then confronted with and complemented by historical data on multiple levels and for different aspects. A case-study of 19th century glass and pottery from the hospital of Sint-Elisabeth in Antwerp will elucidate these developments and this interdisciplinary approach.