3 Review(s)

The Wallace Collection has one of the most important collections of French eighteenth-century gilt bronze in the world.The Wallace Collection has an internationally-renowned collection of French eighteenth-century art, but perhaps lesser known today is their stunning collection of gilt-bronze objects. Intended, when they were made, to fill a practical role as well as for display, the bronzes d'ameublement include clocks, candelabra, wall-lights, firedogs, vases and mounted Sevres porcelain. Once an integral part of the decoration of Parisian homes, they proclaimed the wealth and good taste of patrons such as Marie Antoinette, the due d'Aumont and the comte d'Artois. Lavishly illustrated with new photography, this volume serves both to introduce some of the masterpieces in the Wallace Collection and to ground them in the art-historical and social context in which they were made. Focusing on the last two decades before the French Revolution, the book celebrates the superb skills and talents of the artists who made these remarkable works and illustrates the way in which the passion for the Antique world came to dominate all aspects of artistic production in France.