Search results for ""Author Helen Jacobsen""

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.

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This first major monograph on cabinetmaker Jean-Henri Riesener traces his life and career, bringing new insights into his business practice, designs and construction techniques. Jean-Henri Riesener (1734–1806) was one of the greatest French cabinetmakers of all time. From humble beginnings as a German immigrant in Paris, he found fame through the delivery of a magnificent roll-top desk to Louis XV in 1769. He went on to become Marie-Antoinette’s favourite cabinetmaker, supplying the queen and the court of Louis XVI with sumptuous furniture of superb quality. Renowned for his exquisite marquetry and refined designs, his pieces were ornamented with spectacular gilt-bronze mounts made by some of the greatest metalworkers in Paris. In the nineteenth century, Riesener’s name became associated with the very best of Louis XVI-period French furniture. His pieces continue to be highly sought after and are found in major museums worldwide. Based on the extensive collections of Riesener furniture in the Wallace Collection, Waddesdon Manor and the Royal Collection, the authors examine the objects and their history, and highlight the changing tastes of the nineteenth-century collectors who acquired so many former French royal pieces. The new illustrations and visual glossary add another important resource for art historians, decorative arts enthusiasts and furniture lovers.

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Accompanying an exhibition at the Wallace Collection, Inspiring Walt Disney explores the influences of the art and architecture of France on Walt Disney and his studio artists, highlighting in particular the Disney classics of hand-drawn animation, Cinderella (1950) and Beauty and the Beast (1991). Pairing preparatory material from these films – including concept art for talking furniture and fairy-tale castles – with masterpieces from the eighteenth century reveals hidden sources of inspiration and allows us to appreciate the extraordinary talents behind Disney animated films and French decorative arts. Just as the dynamic, twisting movements of the Rococo sought to breathe life into what was essentially inanimate – silver, porcelain, furniture – so too did Disney animators seek to create the illusion of movement, action and emotion. Illustrated with innovative works by artists such as Mary Blair, Hans Bacher and Peter J. Hall, and the animated and anthropomorphic furniture, Sèvres porcelain and gilt bronze of rococo designers, the catalogue explores the shared creative roots of these two seemingly disparate artistic realms and looks to revitalise the feelings of excitement, awe and marvel, which both eighteenth-century craftsmen and Disney animators sought to spark in their audiences.

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