Saintly or sinful?

LUXURY HAS A long pedigree. Homer’s warriors slaughtered each other for booty as much as for glory. Priam, the Trojan king, assembled “twelve robes, handsome, rich brocades” and “a magnificent cup the Thracians gave him once” as part of a ransom for the return of the body of his fallen son, Hector. More often, though, luxury has been portrayed as a menace to martial spirit and moral fibre. Christians associated luxury with sinful self-indulgence. In the rose window of Notre Dame, luxury is represented “as a woman titivating herself in front of a mirror”, says Christopher Berry in his study “The Idea of Luxury”, published in 1994.

Sumptuary laws were devised over the centuries to discourage dissipation, curb imports of expensive fripperies and (often hypocritically) preserve distinctions of rank. Those of the Aztecs were particularly tough: macehualtin—members of the labouring class—who displayed finery and precious objects could be put to death. The Venetian republic had three provveditori delle pompe, luxury police who ensured that sumptuary strictures were observed. Rules in the Tokugawa (Edo) period in Japan specified what sort of toys parents could give their children.