"Since 2004, the Dallas Museum of Art has been the repository of the renowned collection of eighteenth-century French art assembled by the late Michael Rosenberg. The long-term loan of these masterpieces greatly enhances the collection of European art at the Museum, and the series of scholarly lectures funded by the Foundation, the Michael L. Rosenberg Lecture Series, gives a powerful boost to its European art program. Those lectures, presented by top scholars in the field of European art history, are re-presented in this volume"--
The themes that emerge from the study of The Huntington collection contribute to a nuanced understanding of French eighteenth-century domestic and cultural life and of the changing interpretations and continued popularity of French art among later collectors in America."--BOOK JACKET.
"This illustrated book, written by leading scholars and the result of years of research and technical analysis, catalogues nearly one hundred paintings, from works by Francois Clouet in the sixteenth century to paintings by Elisabeth Louise Vigee Le Brun in the eighteenth. All these works are explored in detailed, readable entries that will appeal as much to the general art lover as to the specialist." --Book Jacket.
"Fifteen international scholars present their latest research into the contexts and meanings of French genre painting of the eighteenth century, from Jean-Antoine Watteau to Louis-Leopold Boilly. The essays represent a wide range of critical and historical perspectives, from traditional archival research to postructuralist criticism."--Page 4 de la couverture
While earlier studies have focused predominantly on artist François Boucher’s artistic style and identity, this book presents the first full-length interdisciplinary study of Boucher’s prolific collection of around 13,500 objects including paintings, sculpture, prints, drawings, porcelain, shells, minerals, and other imported curios. It discusses the types of objects he collected, the networks through which he acquired them, and their spectacular display in his custom-designed studio at the Louvre, where he lived and worked for nearly two decades. This book explores the role his collection played in the development of his art, his studio, his friendships, and the burgeoning market for luxury goods in mid-eighteenth-century France. In doing so, it sheds new light on the relationship between Boucher’s artistic and collecting practices, which attracted both praise and criticism from period observers. The book will appeal to scholars working in art history, museum studies, and French history.
Once considered the golden age of French printmaking, Louis XIV’s reign saw Paris become a powerhouse of print production. During this time, the king aimed to make fine and decorative arts into signs of French taste and skill and, by extension, into markers of his imperialist glory. Prints were ideal for achieving these goals; reproducible and transportable, they fueled the sophisticated propaganda machine circulating images of Louis as both a man of war and a man of culture. This richly illustrated catalogue features more than one hundred prints from the Getty Research Institute and the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris, whose print collection Louis XIV established in 1667. An esteemed international group of contributors investigates the ways that cultural policies affected printmaking; explains what constitutes a print; describes how one became a printmaker; studies how prints were collected; and considers their reception in the ensuing centuries. A Kingdom of Images is published to coincide with an exhibition on view at the Getty Research Institute from June 18 through September 6, 2015, and at the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris from November 2, 2015, through January 31, 2016.
Architecture in France in the Eighteenth Century Wend von Kalnein French architecture of the eighteenth century - which exhibited great technical ability and refined taste - influenced architectural style throughout Europe. This handsome book is a survey of the French architecture of the period. It begins with the origins of the 'style moderne' under the last years of Louis XIV, discusses the end of Rococo and the return to antiquity, and concludes with the Revolutionary architecture and the house of Madame Récamier. Kalnein describes the development of palace and hôtel architecture by the two great architects de Cotte and Boffrand, discussing such large urban projects as the reconstruction of Rennes and the Places Royales. He traces the return to antiquity (which began when the scholars of the Académie d'Architecture were sent to Rome), the revolutionary architecture with its grand, but never executed, projects, and the shift from neoclassicism to early romanticism. Kalnein also examines the decorative arts of the period, which became even more important than architecture in the Rococo period. Focusing on such architects as Boffrand, Gabriel, and Redoux, he shows how a study of their building decoration illuminates the evolution of 'style moderne,' the battle between Rococo and Neoclassicism, and the dissemination of French styles throughout Europe.
