thinkers, to luxury and its influence on the arts. In France, debates about luxury were often bound up with
those concerning the desirability or otherwise of commerce. These were influenced in turn by
developments in international trade, colonialism, economics and politics.
Figure 5.6 Luis Paret y Alcazar: The Art and Antique Shop, oil on board, 50 × 58 cm, 1772. Lazaro
Galdiano Museum, Madrid.
Source: akgimages/Album/Oronoz.It has been suggested that economics as a discipline developed in midcentury France, around the court
of Louis XV (Terjanian, 2013, 2–3). The economic devastation provoked by the Seven Years War acted
as a catalyst for this, as did Enlightenment figures such as François Quesnay (1694–1774), leader of the
Physiocrats, who centered their economic philosophy on the idea that true wealth was to be derived from
productive land, or agriculture, and from the free circulation of goods, as was perceived to be the case in
England (Terjanian, 2013, 4–5). The Physiocrats believed that trade should be freed so that agricultural
prices might rise and the profits be reinvested in this “healthy” and “natural” form of wealth (Terjanian,
2013, 33). Such theories were perceived as a threat to traditional mercantilism, favored by the French