This volume documents the Getty Museum's important holdings of Vincennes and Sèvres porcelain. Entries are arranged in chronological order and include descriptions, commentary, and a complete bibliography and exhibition list. Every object is illustrated in color and all incised and painted marks are reproduced. The volume also includes an index of painters, gilders, and previous owners.
The glittering and colourful opulent wares of the renowned eighteenth-century French royal Sèvres manufactory are prominently displayed in palaces and art galleries throughout the world. By contrast, the comparative delicacy and simplicity of the beautiful wares of the Vincennes porcelain works, out of which the Sèvres factory evolved, remain relatively unkown, even to porcelain experts. This book is based on the Belvedere Collection of Vincennes and early Sèvres porcelain, started 40 years ago with the modest purchase of an early Vincennes cup and saucer, but which has since grown to be one of the world's most comprehensive study collections for the rare early pieces of these two factories.-- from the dust jacket.
It is the experience probably of most Western amateurs of porcelain to pass through three successive stages of development in their appreciation of an art which, even for the uninitiated, --for those who have no knowledge of its history and little understanding of its technical aspects, --is not lacking in charm and fascination.--pg. xiii.
J. Paul Getty began to collect French decorative arts in the 1930s and continued to do so until his death in 1976. The Museum’s collection has continued to grow since then at a rapid pace and contains over three hundred individual pieces at the time this book is published. This volume illustrates fifty of them. The selection represents a cross section of the collection, which covers the period from approximately 1660 to 1800. In the eighteenth century it became fashionable in Parisian society to decorate the interiors of houses with Far Eastern materials such as lacquer and porcelain. This taste was catered to by the marchands-merciers, members of a guild who combined the functions of the modern interior decorator, the antique dealer, and the picture dealer. These men devised highly ingenious settings for Far Eastern porcelains to adapt their exotic character to the French interiors of the period. Information about them and their clientele has been used in cataloguing the Getty Museum’s collection of mounted oriental porcelain, which is large and of high quality. This book is not a catalogue, nor is it a mere picture book or checklist. Each piece has been chosen because it represents a particular aspect of the crafts involved in the production of objects that were made by Parisian craftsmen for the crown, the nobility, and the rich bourgeoisie. The pieces are arranged in chronological order. Translations of the French archival extracts, an index, and a concise bibliography have been provided.
The authors, Danielle Kisluk-Grosheide and Jeffrey Munger, are curators in the Metropolitan Museum's Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts. They oversaw the recent reinstallation of the Wrightsman Galleries --Book Jacket.
