Illicit Pleasures: Food and Feasts in French Art, Literature

Any French citizen had the right to watch the King and Queen of France consume sumptuous dishes at the 'grand couvert' at Versailles, but on the eve of the Revolution that feast had changed its significance from national display to national shame. During the 19th century, French art and literature would invest images of food and dining with new social meaning in line with modern perceptions of smell and taste and the politics of the day. What you ate was more significant than where you were born.

Sylvia Sagona completed her post graduate studies of a Maitrise ès Lettres at the University of Aix en Provence where she lived and lectured at the university of Aix-Marseilles before taking up a lectureship in the Department of French and Italian studies at the University of Melbourne. She has taught in Paris on 19th century art and literature in partnership with the French Centre d' Etudes pédagogiques de Sèvres, and in Rome with the Università Roma 2.