By the end of the eighteenth century, the French dominated the world of science. And although science and politics had little to do with each other directly, there were increasingly frequent intersections. This is a study of those transactions between science and state, knowledge and power--on the eve of the French Revolution. Charles Gillispie explores how the links between science and polity in France were related to governmental reform, modernization of the economy, and professionalization of science and engineering.

Louis XIV, regency, rococo, neoclassical, empire, art nouveau, and historicist pastiche: furniture styles march across French history as regimes rise and fall. In this extraordinary social history, Leora Auslander explores the changing meaning of furniture from the mid-seventeenth to the early twentieth century, revealing how the aesthetics of everyday life were as integral to political events as to economic and social transformations. Enriched by Auslander's experience as a cabinetmaker, this work demonstrates how furniture served to represent and even generate its makers' and consumers' identities.

Eighteen scholars from both sides of the Atlantic look at the question of work across three centuries of French history. Representing both younger and older generations, they move beyond traditional disciplinary boundaries in order to consider human labor as it was actually performed and to determine what it has meant to specific groups and individuals at particular historical moments. This book proposes some fundamental revisions in the history of work which will have important implications for our understanding of social, political, economic, and cultural developments not only in France but throughout Europe.

The eloquent beauty of the vases produced in the workshops of the ancient Greeks is represented by a selection of pieces from the superb private collection of Molly and Walter Bareiss that spans more than a thousand years of the craft. From a delightful miniature stirrup vase dating ca. 1300 B.C. to prime examples of the molded vases from Augustan Rome, the Bareiss collection includes a splendid representative collection, guided by a sure instinct for the unique beauty of design and drawing. Assembled in this brief catalogue are illustrated discussions of forty-seven of the masterpieces from the 258 vases currently on loan to the Getty Museum. Dietrich von Bothmer, Chairman of Greek and Roman Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, introduces this most important collection, one with which he has been intimately involved since its conception, advising, studying, interpreting, and even piecing together shattered vases. Following the individual catalogue entries is a full checklist of an additional 205 vases that are on loan to the Getty Museum.

Museum Documentation Systems

The great age of European ceramic design began around 1500 and ended in the early 19th century with the introduction of large-scale production of ceramics. In this illustrated history, with nearly 300 color and black and white photos and reproductions, curator Howard Coutts considers the main stylistic trends�Renaissance, Mannerism, Oriental, Rococo, and Neoclassicism�as they were represented in such products as Italian Majolica, Dutch Delftware, Meissen and S�vres porcelain, Staffordshire, and Wedgwood pottery. He pays close attention to changes in eating habits over the period, particularly the layout of a formal dinner, and discusses the development of ceramics as room decoration, the transmission of images via prints, marketing of ceramics and other luxury goods, and the intellectual background to Neoclassicism.

Everyday Rococo: Madame de Pompadour and Sevres Porcelain is a year-on-year richly-illustrated chronology of her daily life and purchases