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.

Among the finest examples of European craftsmanship are the clocks produced for the luxury trade in the eighteenth century. The J. Paul Getty Museum is fortunate to have in its decorative arts collection twenty clocks dating from around 1680 to 1798: eighteen produced in France and two in Germany. They demonstrate the extraordinary workmanship that went into both the design and execution of the cases and the intricate movements by which the clocks operated. In this handsome volume, each clock is pictured and discussed in detail, and each movement diagrammed and described. In addition, biographies of the clockmakers and enamelers are included, as are indexes of the names of the makers, previous owners, and locations.

This book explores a selection of hundreds of masterpieces from the extraordinary art and jewellery collections formed by the legendary art connoisseur and museum benefactor Roberto Polo. At an early age, Roberto Polo revealed a powerful talent as a visual artist and was described as 'an art prodigy', exhibiting his work in major art museums and galleries in America. Thanks to his profound knowledge of art history and theory, he also revealed an astonishing talent for identifying exceptional art and jewellery from many periods and origins. Educated at The Corcoran School of Art in Washington, D.C., where he was appointed professor at the precocious age of sixteen, and at Columbia University in New York, at the age of twenty-four he conceived and organised the now landmark exhibition Fashion as Fantasy (1975) featuring work especially created for him by artists including Andy Warhol, Robert Motherwell, Yves Saint Laurent, Karl Lagerfeld, Paco Rabanne and Guy Bourdin. Roberto Polo was instrumental in founding Citibank's Fine Art Investment Services, the first department of its kind in the banking industry. In 1981, he left Citibank and incorporated PAMG Inc., his company specialised in art and jewellery investment advisory. During this period, he formed magnificent collections of French eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth century fine and decorative art, and jewellery, collections described as 'anthological'. In 1988, he suffered a Kafkaesque fall, from which he rose in 1995, defending historical design and Modernism through Galerie Historismus, first in Paris and then in Brussels, where he resides. Often described as 'the trendsetter of the art market', Roberto Polo continues to follow the edict that one should only acquire works of art which were revolutionary in their time and have fallen into oblivion. Exquisitely illustrated with over 300 colour photographs, Roberto Polo: The Eye includes texts by Daniel Alcouffe, former Chief Curator of the Department of Decorative Art of the Musée du Louvre, Dr. Thomas Föhl, member of the Board of Directors of the Klassik Stiftung in Weimar, and Françoise Aubry, Chief Curator of the Musée Victor Horta. This book is a fascinating insight into a man described as 'one of the ten people who have made a difference in the art market' and an illuminating account of his forty years of art and jewellery collecting.