A narrative history of the founding of the Louvre that also explores the ideological underpinnings, pedagogical aims, and aesthetic criteria of this, the first great national art museum.

In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries the first modern, public museums of art—civic, state, or national—appeared throughout Europe, setting a standard for the nature of such institutions that has made its influence felt to the present day. Although the emergence of these museums was an international development, their shared history has not been systematically explored until now. Taking up that project, this volume includes chapters on fifteen of the earliest and still major examples, from the Capitoline Museum in Rome, opened in 1734, to the Alte Pinakothek in Munich, opened in 1836. These essays consider a number of issues, such as the nature, display, and growth of the museums’ collections and the role of the institutions in educating the public. The introductory chapters by art historian Carole Paul, the volume’s editor, lay out the relationship among the various museums and discuss their evolution from private noble and royal collections to public institutions. In concert, the accounts of the individual museums give a comprehensive overview, providing a basis for understanding how the collective emergence of public art museums is indicative of the cultural, social, and political shifts that mark the transformation from the early-modern to the modern world. The fourteen distinguished contributors to the book include Robert G. W. Anderson, former director of the British Museum in London; Paula Findlen, Ubaldo Pierotti Professor of Italian History at Stanford University; Thomas Gaehtgens, director of the Getty Research Institute; and Andrew McClellan, dean of academic affairs and professor of art history at Tufts University. Show more Show less

This volume explores the ways in which the aesthetics of public art were affected by the social, political, and cultural changes of the Enlightenment.

Drawing on some 2,000 sources, this is a remarkable history of the French Revolution told through the study of images of the body as they appeared in the popular literature of the time.

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This is the story of a book, a book about a book. The Antiquites nationales constitute, to say the least, an enigmatic publication. Written at the time of the French Revolution, by an author who had until then been known principally for his works on natural history, it is a book about which very little is known. A series of sixty-one dissertations of varying lengths, gathered into five volumes, describes and relates the history of individual buildings or monuments which were, according to the author, threatened by the waves of vandalism occurring in France during the early years of the French Revolution. Neither the circumstances of the book's writing nor of its printing and marketing are easily elucidated, and the very form in which it was issued is one that requires careful investigation by a bibliographer. A careful collation of the Antiquites reveals that the traditional book form was subtly modified in an attempt to allow readers better to appropriate it for themselves. Amongst the more intriguing aspects of this book is the story of its reception. Hailed at the time of its publication as being a work of the greatest importance which should find a place in every library, the Antiquites very quickly fell from public favour. By now, it is generally familiar only to those engaged in research on the history of French architectural heritage or who are trying to find engravings illustrating a building at the time of the Revolution or before.