Les musées universels dans un contexte national: la collection itinérante du South Kensington Museum au XIXe siècle

This chapter examines the interactions between regional and national museums through the example of the South Kensington Museum's Circulating Collection during the second half of the nineteenth century. It argues that the history of the Circulating Collection demonstrates the contested and contradictory nature of the idea of the universal museum during this period, and shows how far the idea was entwined with power, and served itself to define the local, national and international.