This introduction positions the book in terms of three key concepts for the nineteenth century: collecting; historical consciousness; and the legacies of the French Revolution. In each case it surveys the relevant scholarship and identifies how this project seeks to offer a fresh perspective on how the circulation and recuperation of objects was central in forging new kinds of historical consciousness in the post-revolutionary era. It argues for the enduring endurance of private collectors within the French public sphere, in contrast to the assumptions that their contribution was increasingly marginal. It suggests that the expanding market for antiques was central in allowing new ways of possessing and imagining the past and insists on the need to re-inscribe the role of private donors and collectors within debates about the shaping of a national heritage (le patrimoine). The introduction also justifies the parameters of the project- geographically and chronologically- and briefly sketches the outline of the following chapters.