
Artists' Things
Rediscovering Lost Property from Eighteenth-Century France
Getty Research Institute,U.S. (Publisher)
Published on 9. January 2024
Book
Paperback/Softback
374 pages
978-1-60606-863-2 (ISBN)
Description
Artists are makers of things. Yet it is a measure of the disembodied manner in which we generally think about artists that we rarely consider the everyday items they own. This innovative book looks at objects that once belonged to artists, revealing not only the fabric of the eighteenth-century art world in France but also unfamiliar-and sometimes unexpected-insights into the individuals who populated it, including Jean-Antoine Watteau, Francois Boucher, Jean-Baptiste Greuze, and Elisabeth Vigee-LeBrun.
From the curious to the mundane, from the useful to the symbolic, these items have one thing in common: they have all been eclipsed from historical view. Some of the objects still exist, like Jean-Honore Fragonard's color box and Jacques-Louis David's table. Others survive only in paintings, such as Jean-Simeon Chardin's cistern in his Copper Drinking Fountain, or in documents, like Francois Lemoyne's sword, the instrument of his suicide. Several were literally lost, including pastelist Jean-Baptiste Perronneau's pencil case. In this fascinating book, the authors engage with fundamental historical debates about production, consumption, and sociability through the lens of material goods owned by artists
From the curious to the mundane, from the useful to the symbolic, these items have one thing in common: they have all been eclipsed from historical view. Some of the objects still exist, like Jean-Honore Fragonard's color box and Jacques-Louis David's table. Others survive only in paintings, such as Jean-Simeon Chardin's cistern in his Copper Drinking Fountain, or in documents, like Francois Lemoyne's sword, the instrument of his suicide. Several were literally lost, including pastelist Jean-Baptiste Perronneau's pencil case. In this fascinating book, the authors engage with fundamental historical debates about production, consumption, and sociability through the lens of material goods owned by artists
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Santa Monica CA
United States
Publishing group
Getty Trust Publications
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
140 colour and 50 black and white illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 252 mm
Width: 178 mm
Thickness: 22 mm
Weight
848 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-60606-863-2 (9781606068632)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Katie Scott is Professor of the History of Art at the Courtauld Institute of Art.
Hannah Williams is senior lecturer in the history of art at Queen Mary University of London.
Hannah Williams is senior lecturer in the history of art at Queen Mary University of London.