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.

"This book explores the life, professional activities, artistic production and collecting practices of Georges Hoentschel through the objects he collected and created. Essays by the editors, joined by Amy F. Ogata, associate professor at Bard Graduate Center and Christine E. Brennan, senior research associate in Medieval Art as the Metropolitan Museum, address his biography, business contacts, and clients, as well as the arrival of the collection in New York, its lavish four-volume illustrated catalogue, and the medieval collections. Also discussed is Hoentschel's involvement with contemporary art, including his intriguing stoneware creations and designs for a pavilion and interiors at the 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris. Fully illustrated catalogue entries explore the astonishing range of objects he collected. Throughout the book, new documentary material from archives and newspapers illuminates this little-explored chapter in the history of collecting decorative arts between France and America at the dawn of the twentieth century."--book jacket.

Erik Satie (1866-1925) was a quirky, innovative and enigmatic composer whose impact has spread far beyond the musical world. As an artist active in several spheres - from cabaret to religion, from calligraphy to poetry and playwriting - and collaborator with some of the leading avant-garde figures of the day, including Cocteau, Picasso, Diaghilev and René Clair, he was one of few genuinely cross-disciplinary composers. His artistic activity, during a tumultuous time in the Parisian art world, situates him in an especially exciting period, and his friendships with Debussy, Stravinsky and others place him at the centre of French musical life. He was a unique figure whose art is immediately recognisable, whatever the medium he employed. Erik Satie: Music, Art and Literature explores many aspects of Satie's creativity to give a full picture of this most multifaceted of composers. The focus is on Satie's philosophy and psychology revealed through his music; Satie's interest in and participation in artistic media other than music, and Satie's collaborations with other artists. This book is therefore essential reading for anyone interested in the French musical and cultural scene of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.

Exploring the notion of tactility in dada and surrealism

Winifred E. Howe's 1913 account of The Metropolitan Museum of Art's history, its founders, and trustees communicates the remarkable circumstances that led to the Museum's transformation into one of the most prestigious art museums in the world. The history begins with an account of the earliest art institutions of New York City (such as the Tammany Society and the New York Academy of Fine Arts) and goes on to describe the Museum's period of organization following the end of the Civil War. Howe details the movement of the Museum from its original downtown building to its current location in Central Park, the museum building's construction and subsequent additions, the organization of the museum's administration, and the continued expansion of the museum through the presidency of J. Pierpont Morgan.

First published in 2003 Consuming the Past covers pilgrimages to popular festivals, from modern spectacles to advertising, from the work of avant-garde painters to the novels of Emile Zola, and explores the complexity of the fin-de-siècle French fascination with the Middle Ages. The authors map the cultural history of the period from the end of the Franco-Prussian war to the 1905 separation of Church and State illuminating the powerful appeal that the medieval past held for a society undergoing the rapid changes of industrialisation.

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.