The Case of the Disappearing Gauguin
The Case of the Disappearing Gauguin

Author: Stephanie A. Brown

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2024-07-23

Total Pages: 205

ISBN-13: 1538173115

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A globetrotting Gold Rush heiress. An awkward Paris schoolmaster. A celebrated French actor. And a museum of history and art in California’s Central Valley. What do they have in common? They are all connected by an oil painting, a still life called Flowers and Fruit, that may or may not have been painted by the post-Impressionist Paul Gauguin. In the decade that museums began to collect modern art, Flowers and Fruit traveled the art market in Paris and New York. Experts and connoisseurs hailed it as a signature work of Gauguin just as he came to be acknowledged as a master. When it joined the Haggin Museum in Stockton, California, locals treasured it as “the Museum’s Gauguin.” But by 1964, Gauguin scholars and experts in Paris and New York had lost track of the painting and declared it lost. When it resurfaced in 2018, they questioned its authenticity. How could a genuine Gauguin have been hiding in plain sight in a provincial American museum? Is Flowers and Fruit a forgery or is it authentic? Follow along as historian, curator, and professor of museum studies Dr. Stephanie Brown traces the unlikely history of the painting. Using never-before-seen archives and making new connections, Brown writes the biography of a painting—and explores what we mean by authenticity and who gets to define it. Now undergoing technical examination as a result of Dr. Brown’s findings, Flowers and Fruit has embarked on a new chapter of its life. If the painting is authentic, it will be the most valuable painting in the Haggin’s collection—and one of the most important paintings in California. And if the painting is a forgery, who was the forger?

French Rococo Ébénisterie in the J. Paul Getty Museum
French Rococo Ébénisterie in the J. Paul Getty Museum

Author: Gillian Wilson

Publisher: J. Paul Getty Museum

Published: 2021-03-30

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781606066300

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The first comprehensive catalogue of the Getty Museum’s significant collection of French Rococo ébénisterie furniture. This catalogue focuses on French ébénisterie furniture in the Rococo style dating from 1735 to 1760. These splendid objects directly reflect the tastes of the Museum’s founder, J. Paul Getty, who started collecting in this area in 1938 and continued until his death in 1976. The Museum’s collection is particularly rich in examples created by the most talented cabinet masters then active in Paris, including Bernard van Risenburgh II (after 1696–ca. 1766), Jacques Dubois (1694–1763), and Jean-François Oeben (1721–1763). Working for members of the French royal family and aristocracy, these craftsmen excelled at producing veneered and marquetried pieces of furniture (tables, cabinets, and chests of drawers) fashionable for their lavish surfaces, refined gilt-bronze mounts, and elaborate design. These objects were renowned throughout Europe at a time when Paris was considered the capital of good taste. The entry on each work comprises both a curatorial section, with description and commentary, and a conservation report, with construction diagrams. An introduction by Anne-Lise Desmas traces the collection’s acquisition history, and two technical essays by Arlen Heginbotham present methodologies and findings on the analysis of gilt-bronze mounts and lacquer. The free online edition of this open-access publication is available at www.getty.edu/publications/rococo/ and includes zoomable, high-resolution photography. Also available are free PDF, EPUB, and Kindle/MOBI downloads of the book, and JPG downloads of the main catalogue images.

Bonnard
Bonnard

Author: Raymond Cogniat

Publisher:

Published: 1979

Total Pages: 94

ISBN-13: 9789070061494

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The Art of the Pastel
The Art of the Pastel

Author: Thea Burns

Publisher: National Geographic Books

Published: 2015-09-22

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 0789212404

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The only comprehensive history of pastel art, beautifully illustrated with works both celebrated and little known The Art of the Pastel traces the evolution of this most appealing medium from the fifteenth to the early twentieth century—from its humble origins as a tool for sketching to the height of its popularity in Rococo portraiture, and its embrace by the Impressionists and Symbolists. Authors Thea Burns and Philippe Saunier, both leading experts on the subject, shed new light on the acknowledged masters of the pastel, such as Maurice Quentin de la Tour and Jean-Etienne Liotard, who used these magical sticks of color to capture the character of their sitters; Edgar Degas and Mary Cassatt, who used them to reveal the unexpected beauties of the everyday; and Odilon Redon, who used them to explore the inner mysteries of the spirit. But Burns and Saunier consider the pastel work of many other artists as well, from forgotten—yet pleasing—society portraitists to such important names as Delacroix, Whistler, and Picasso. As a rare achievement, their graceful yet authoritative text is matched by the color plates in this volume, which reproduce the harmoniously blended hues of more than 330 choice pastels, from collections around the world. For reasons of conservation, most of these works are exhibited only rarely, and then only in low light. Now they can be admired all together, without interruption, in this museum between two covers. A delight for the eyes as well as an important work of art history, The Art of the Pastel will be eagerly welcomed by artists, scholars, and art lovers alike.