His works have prompted a New York Times bestseller; a film starring Scarlett Johansson and Colin Firth; record visitor numbers at art institutions from Amsterdam to Washington, DC; and special crowd-control measures at the Mauritshuis, The Hague, where thousands flock to catch a glimpse of the enigmatic and enchanting Girl with a Pearl Earring, also known as the "Dutch Mona Lisa". In his lifetime, however, the fame of Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675) barely extended beyond his native Delft and a small circle of patrons. After his death, his name was largely forgotten, except by a few Dutch art collectors and dealers. Outside of Holland, his works were even misattributed to other artists. It was not until the mid-19th century that Vermeer came to the attention of the international art world, which suddenly looked upon his narrative minutiae, meticulous textural detail, and majestic planes of light, spotted a genius, and never looked back. This XXL edition brings together the complete catalog of Vermeer's work, presenting the calm yet compelling scenes so treasured in galleries across Europe and the United States into one monograph of utmost reproduction quality. With brand new photography of many works, Vermeer's restrained but richly evocative repertoire of domestic actions - ranging from letter writing to music making to preparations in the kitchen - unfolds in a generous format, including three fold-out spreads. Numerous details emphasize the artist's remarkable ability not only to bear witness to the trends and trimmings of the Dutch Golden Age but also to encapsulate an entire story in just one transient gesture, expression, or look.

During the early modern period sculptors experimented with forms, typologies, and materials of their art in unprecedented ways. Sculpture was at the center of theoretical debates concerning the relative merits of the different arts, the differences between ancient and modern art, and the relationship between art and nature. Rome was a major center for these theoretical debates, as well as a locus for patronage and collecting. Sculptors from all over Europe came to Rome to study the remains of the antique past and to practice their art. Critical Perspectives on Roman Baroque Sculpture stakes out a new frontier of research on seventeenth-century sculpture in Rome-a frontier that looks well beyond attributional and technical questions, instead focusing on questions of historical context and criticism including the interaction of sculptural theory and practice; the creative roles of sculptors and their patrons; the relationship of sculpture to its antique models and to contemporary painting; and problems of contextual meaning and reception. Aside from the editors, the contributors are Michael Cole, Julia K. Dabbs, Maarten Delbeke, Damian Dombrowski, Maria Cristina Fortunati, Estelle Lingo, Peter M. Lukehart, Aline Magnien, and Christina Strunck.

Despite William Hunter's stature as one of the most important collectors and men of science of the eighteenth century, and the fact that his collection is the foundation of Scotland's oldest public museum, The Hunterian, until now there has been no comprehensive examination in a single volume of all his collections in their diversity. This volume restores Hunter to a rightful position of prominence among the medical men whose research and amassing of specimens transformed our understanding of the natural world and man's position within it. This volume comprises essays by international specialists and are as diverse as Hunter's collections themselves, dealing as they do with material that ranges from medical and scientific specimens, to painting, prints, books and manuscripts. The first sections focus upon Hunter's own collection and his response to it, while the final section contextualises Hunter within the wider sphere. A special feature of the volume is the inclusion of references to the Hunterian's web pages and on-line databases. These enable searches for items from Hunter's collections, both from his museum and library. Locating Hunter's collecting within the broader context of his age and environment, this book provides an original approach to a man and collection whose importance has yet to be comprehensively assessed.

British artists and commentators in the late 18th and early 19th century encoded the twin aspirations of progress and power in images and descriptions of Southeast Asia's ruined Hindu and Buddhist candis, pagodas, wats and monuments. To the British eye, images of the remains of past civilisations allowed, indeed stimulated, philosophical meditations on the rise and decline of entire empires. Ruins were witnesses to the fall, humbling and disturbingly prophetic, (and so revealing more about British attitudes than they do about Southeast Asia's cultural remains). This important study of a highly appealing but relatively neglected body of work adds multiple dimensions to the history of art and image production in Britain of the period, showing how the anxieties of empire were encoded in the genre of landscape paintings and prints.

One hundred masterpieces of European art and arts and crafts of the eighteenth century form a panorama of innovation, design and expert realisation. In their sumptuous design, the porcelain, furniture, bronzes and silver objects are all miracles of the luxury craftsmanship found in court art. Such sophisticated design was the driving force behind the quickly successive styles of classicism, naturalism and the exotic design of the Rococo period. Andre-Charles Boulle, Jakob Philipp Hackert, Johann Joachim Kaendler, Alexandre-Jean Oppenordt und Jean-Baptiste Francois Pater are just some of the renowned artists featured in this catalogue. The artworks are opulently presented, interpreted in detail and arranged according to context. Thus the colourful image of a great era in art emerges, one that relied on creative energy and the power of the imagination. Text in German.

A beautiful volume that brings to light the forgotten Le Nain brothers, a trio of 17th-century French master painters who specialized in portraiture, religious subjects, and scenes of everyday peasant life In France in the 17th century, the brothers Antoine (c. 1598-1648), Louis (c. 1600/1605-1648), and Mathieu (1607-1677) Le Nain painted images of everyday life for which they became posthumously famous. They are celebrated for their depictions of middle-class leisure activities, and particularly for their representations of peasant families, who gaze out at the viewer. The uncompromising naturalism of these compositions, along with their oddly suspended action, imparts a sense of dignity to their subjects. Featuring more than sixty paintings highlighting the artists' full range of production, including altarpieces, private devotional paintings, portraits, and the poignant images of peasants for which the brothers are best known, this generously illustrated volume presents new research concerning the authorship, dating, and meaning of the works by well-known scholars in the field. Also groundbreaking are the results of a technical study of the paintings, which constitutes a major contribution to the scholarship on the Le Nain brothers. Published in association with the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco Exhibition Schedule: Kimbell Art Museum (05/22/16-09/11/16) de Young Museum, San Francisco (10/08/16-01/29/17) Musee du Louvre-Lens (03/22/2017-06/26/2017)

Since 1972, the Drawings and Prints Department of the Louvre has published the reportoire of the Italian drawings held in its collections. This volume, the tenth in the series, is dedicated to the Bolognese and Emilian artists of the 17th century. Seicento is considered by all as the golden age of Bolognese painting, which not only enriched the city with many masterpieces but saw many of its main artists going to Rome, the capital of Baroque, to decorate its churches and palaces (from the Galleria Farnese by Annibale Carracci to the many domes frescoed by Lanfranco). The volume includes close to 1000 drawings by artists such as Ludovico and Annibale Carracci, Bartolomeo Cesi, Bartolomeo Schedoni, Guido Reni, Giovanni Lanfranco, Elisabetta Sirani, Giuseppe Maria Crespi e Donato Creti and it traces the evolution of draughtmanship in Bologna and Emilia, from the Accademia degli Incamminati to the spreading of classicism and baroque. Text in French. Contents: Preface by Henri Loyrette (President of the Louvre); Introduction; The Teaching of the Carraccis; Contemporary Artists of the Carraccis; The Influcence of Bologna; Baroque and Classiscism in Bologna and Emilia; Bibliography; Tables of Concordance; List of the Artists; Index of the Collectors Also available: Battista Franco ISBN 9788889854457 Baccio Bandinelli ISBN 9788889854631

Art is often appreciated for its ability to delight our eyes and refresh our minds. But it can also serve as a powerful vehicle for exploring darker emotions, such as fear, sadness, and grief. And while these themes have an artistic history dating back to the ancients, the ways in which they have been represented in art have changed dramatically over time. Published to coincide with an exhibition at the Smart Museum of Art, "The Tragic Muse: Art and Emotion, 1700-1900" draws on the work of several distinguished scholars to examine the richly varied representation of tragedy in the European artistic tradition over the course of two centuries. This catalog is generously illustrated with full-color reproductions of all the works contained in the exhibition, and the fascinating contributions offer new insights into the approaches taken by the visual arts, as well as literature and drama, in expressing and eliciting strong emotions.

Lange Zeit galt Genrekunst als Abbild der Wirklichkeit und der Prozess zunehmender Sakularisierung schien die Ursache ihrer Entstehung. Heute herrschen Erklarungen vor, welche die Genrekunst im Sinne gemalter Ethik und Lasterdarstellungen als Beitrag eines christlich-didaktischen Programms werten. Der vorliegende Band erweitert diese Perspektiven. Denn die Genremalerei stellt sich politischen, theologischen wie kunsttheoretischen Fragen und erweist sich als Medium einer im Aufbruch begriffenen Welt. So ist es kein Zufall, dass sich die Anfange der Genrekunst im 15. Jahrhundert in druckgraphischen Werken - im fortschrittlichsten Reproduktionsmedium jener Zeit - finden. Dabei adressiert sie ein stadtisches Publikum, das im Alltag immer wieder dem Problem christlicher Lebensfuhrung gegenubersteht. Die Publikation versammelt Beitrage mit Interpretationen exemplarischer Genrebilder von Albrecht Durer, Hieronymus Bosch, Petrus Christus oder Jan Sanders van Hemessen und regt zu einer Neubewertung der Gattung an, um sie als selbstreflexive, konfliktoffene Kunstform sichtbar zu machen.

In the hush of early morning, a dutiful mother butters bread for her young son, who patiently stands at her side. This splendid painting captures a trivial moment in a family's daily routine and makes it almost sacrosanct. A Woman Preparing Bread and Butter for a Boy was executed by the Dutch painter Pieter de Hooch (1629-1684) between 1661 and 1663. The J. Paul Getty Museum's canvas is one of the artist's many pictures depicting women and children engaged in daily activities.
This book examines the painting in relation to the artist's life and work, exploring his stylistic development and his complex relationship to other painters in the Dutch Republic. The author places the subject matter of the painting within the broader context of seventeenth-century Dutch concepts of domesticity and child rearing and ties it to social and cultural developments in the Netherlands during the second half of the seventeenth century.

The Galleria Borghese brings together an extraordinary collection of ancient and modern sculpture within a beautifully decorated villa. This volume, dedicated to modern sculpture (Late Renaissance to Baroque to Neoclassical), marks the start of a new general catalogue of the collection. The introduction narrates the history of the collection, from its creation by Cardinal Scipione Borghese in the 17th century to its sale to the Italian Republic at the end of the 19th century. The entries are full of chronological details, new attributions, information on restorations and account for the different historical settings thanks to an accurate study of the inventory records of the villa. They include world-famous masterpieces by Algardi, Bernini and Canova among others. The sale to Napoleon of many of its Antique works of art (now in the Louvre) was key to the Borghese's commission works of ancient inspiration, the analysis of which animates the pages of another section, based on the concepts of copy and remake. The catalogue closes with a section on restoration, that gives an account of the fundamental role of 16- to 18th-century sculptors in the maintenance and transformation of the archaeological collection in relation to the villa's display requirements. Text in Italian.

In 1778 Pierre Henri De Valenciennes, a young landscape painter from Toulouse, found himself in Rome with many other foreign artists intent on studying not only the ancient monuments and the works of the modern masters, but also to encounter Italy's light and landscape. Contrary to most of his companions, Valenciennes rarely copied ancient or modern works of art, but instead he chose to sketch views of Rome, 'a mix of antique and of modern, an assemblage of irregularity and symmetry'. The 96 pages of the sketchbook, reproduced in their actual size and accompanied by a commentary, guide us through Rome, from the river port of Ripa Grande to the basilica of St. John Lateran, from the Ponte Salario bridge to the Vatican, from Piazza Barberini to the Villa Borghese and along the banks of the river Tiber. An advocate of en plein air painting, Valenciennes' sketches use two or three tints of the same colour to trace the landscape of an ideal Rome, and to achieve this goal he did not hesitate to modify or move the surrounding architecture. Contents: Preface by Xavier Salmon, Director of the Prints and Drawings Department of the Louvre; Introduction; Travel to Italy and meeting with artists; Valenciennes' Italian Sketchbooks; Description of the organisation of Sketchbook RF 12966; Material Description; Provenance; List of Exhibitions, Bibliography. Text in French.

The first book-length study of the fifteen surviving Little Gidding bible concordances, this book examines the visual culture of print in seventeenth-century England through the lens of one extraordinary family and their hand-made biblical manuscripts. The volumes were created by the women of the Ferrar-Collet family of Little Gidding, who selected works from the family's collection of Catholic religious prints, and then cut and pasted prints and print fragments, along with verses excised from the bible, and composed them in artful arrangements on the page in the manner of collage. Gaudio shows that by cutting, recombining, and pasting multi-scaled print fragments, the Ferrar-Collet family put into practice a remarkably flexible pictorial language. The Little Gidding concordances provide an occasion to explore how the manipulation of print could be a means of thinking through some of the most pressing religious and political questions of the pre-civil war period: the coherence of printed scripture, the nature of sovereignty, the relevance of the Mosaic law, and the protestant reform of images. By foregrounding the Ferrar-Collets' engagement with the print fragment, this book extends the scope of early modern print history beyond the printmaker's studio and expands our understanding of the ways an early modern Protestant community could productively engage with the religious image. Contrary to the long-held view that the English Reformation led to a decline in the importance of the religious image, this study demonstrates the ongoing vitality of religious prints in early modern England as instruments for thinking.

Antiquarianism and the Visual Histories of Louis XIV: Artifacts for a Future Past provides a new interpretation of objects and images commissioned by Louis XIV (1638-1715) to document his reign for posterity. The Sun King's image-makers based their prediction of how future historians would interpret the material remains of their culture on contemporary antiquarian methods, creating new works of art as artifacts for a future time. The need for such items to function as historical evidence led to many pictorial developments, and medals played a central role in this. Coin-like in form but not currency, the medal was the consummate antiquarian object, made in imitation of ancient coins used to study the past. Yet medals are often elided from the narrative of the arts of ancient regime France, their neglect wholly disproportionate to the cultural status that they once held. This revisionary study uncovers a numismatic sensibility throughout the iconography of Louis XIV, and in the defining monuments of his age. It looks beyond the standard political reading of the works of art made to document Louis XIV's history, to argue that they are the results of a creative process wedded to antiquarianism, an intellectual culture that provided a model for the production of history in the grand siecle.

The popularity of the comic performers of late-Georgian and Regency England and their frequent depiction in portraits, caricatures and prints is beyond dispute, yet until now little has been written on the subject. In this unique study Jim Davis considers the representation of English low comic actors, such as Joseph Munden, John Liston, Charles Mathews and John Emery, in the visual arts of the period, the ways in which such representations became part of the visual culture of their time, and the impact of visual representation and art theory on prose descriptions of comic actors. Davis reveals how many of the actors discussed also exhibited or collected paintings and used painterly techniques to evoke the world around them. Drawing particularly on the influence of Hogarth and Wilkie, he goes on to examine portraiture as critique and what the actors themselves represented in terms of notions of national and regional identity.

The Carthusian monks at San Martino began a series of decorative campaigns in the 1580s that continued until 1757, transforming the church of their monastery, the Certosa di San Martino, into a jewel of marble revetment, painting, and sculpture. The aesthetics of the church generate a jarring moral conflict: few religious orders honored the ideals of poverty and simplicity so ardently yet decorated so sumptuously. In this study, Nick Napoli explores the terms of this conflict and of how it sought resolution amidst the social and economic realities and the political and religious culture of early modern Naples. Napoli mines the documentary record of the decorative campaigns at San Martino, revealing the rich testimony it provides relating to both the monks' and the artists' expectations of how practice and payment should transpire. From these documents, the author delivers insight into the ethical and economic foundations of artistic practice in early modern Naples. The first English-language study of a key monument in Naples and the first to situate the complex within the cultural history of the city, The Ethics of Ornament in Early Modern Naples sheds new light on the Neapolitan baroque, industries of art in the age before capitalism, and the relation of art, architecture, and ornament.

The history of collecting is a topic of central importance to many academic disciplines, and shows no sign of abating in popularity. As such, scholars will welcome this collection of essays by internationally recognised experts that gathers together for the first time varied and stimulating perspectives on the nineteenth-century collector and art market for French eighteenth-century art, and ultimately the formation of collections that form part of such august institutions as the Louvre and the National Gallery in London. The book is the culmination of a successful conference organised jointly between the Wallace Collection and the Louvre, on the occasion of the acclaimed exhibition Masterpieces from the Louvre: The Collection of Louis La Caze. Exploring themes relating to collectors, critics, markets and museums from France, England and Germany, the volume will appeal to academics and students alike, and become essential reading on any course that deals with the history of collecting, the history of taste and the nineteenth-century craze for the perceived douceur de vivre of eighteenth-century France. It also provides valuable insight into the history of the art markets and the formation of museums.

In recent years, there has been increasing scholarly interest in the history of museums, academies and major exhibitions. There has been, however, little to no sustained interest in the histories of alternative exhibitions (single artwork, solo artist, artist-mounted, entrepreneurial, privately funded, ephemeral, etc.) with the notable exception of those publications that deal with situations involving major artists or those who would become so - for example J.L. David's exhibition of Intervention of the Sabine Women (1799) and The First Impressionist Exhibition of 1874 - despite the fact that these sorts of exhibitions and critical scholarship about them have become commonplace (and no less important) in the contemporary art world. The present volume uses and contextualizes eleven case studies to advance some overarching themes and commonalities among alternative exhibitions in the long modern period from the late-eighteenth to the late-twentieth centuries and beyond. These include the issue of control in the interrelation and elision of the roles of artist and curator, and the relationship of such alternative exhibitions to the dominant modes, structures of display and cultural ideology.

The dramatic realism of Caravaggio’s art has fascinated viewers since the seventeenth century. Yet no prior monograph presents the thorough investigation of Caravaggio’s “realism� ventured in John Varriano’s remarkable book. Forgoing the “life and works� format of most earlier monographs, Varriano concentrates on uncovering the principles and practices—the intellect and the imagination—that guided Caravaggio’s eye and brush as he made some of the most controversial paintings in the history of art. Caravaggio’s irascible personality, libertine sexual preferences, and lawless, even murderous, behavior have attracted as much heated commentary as his realism. Varriano sheds important new light on these disputes by tracing the autobiographical threads in Caravaggio’s paintings and framing these within the context of contemporary Italian culture. Ultimately, Varriano links Caravaggio’s aggressive persona and innovative methods to changes taking place throughout seventeenth-century Europe. Caravaggio: The Art of Realism begins with a highly original investigation of the artist’s studio practices. In subsequent chapters, Varriano discusses Caravaggio’s response to the material culture of his day, his use of gesture and expression, and his eroticism and violence as well as other issues central to the painter’s legendary realism. Caravaggio: The Art of Realism will appeal to students and the general reader as well as to specialists in the field. Varriano has a gift for presenting complex scholarship in a clear, accessible way. The book contains numerous color illustrations that will help readers experience Caravaggio’s art and follow the author’s informative discussion of such famed paintings as Love Victorious and David with the Head of Goliath.

In "Mimesis Across Empires," Natasha Eaton examines the interactions, attachments, and crossings between the visual cultures of the Mughal and British Empires during the formative period of British imperial rule in India. Eaton explores how the aesthetics of Mughal "vernacular" art and British "realist" art mutually informed one another to create a hybrid visual economy. By tracing the exchange of objects and ideas--between Mughal artists and British collectors, British artists and Indian subjects, and Indian elites and British artists--she shows how Mughal artists influenced British conceptions of their art, their empire, and themselves, even as European art gave Indian painters a new visual vocabulary with which to critique colonial politics and aesthetics. By placing her analysis of visual culture in relation to other cultural encounters--ethnographic, legislative, diplomatic--Eaton uncovers deeper intimacies and hostilities between the colonizer and the colonized, linking artistic mimesis to the larger colonial project in India.

This is the first illustrated scholarly work devoted to the reception and reputation of Edinburgh's premier Enlightenment portrait painter. Sir Henry Raeburn (1756-1823) is especially well known in Scotland as the portrait painter of members of the Scottish Enlightenment. However, outside Scotland, the artist rarely makes more than a fleeting appearance in survey books about portraiture. Ten international scholars recover Raeburn from his artistic isolation by looking at his local and international reception and reputation, both in his lifetime and posthumously. It focuses as much on Edinburgh and Scotland as on metropolitan markets and cosmopolitan contexts. Previously unpublished archival material is brought to light for the first time, especially from the Innes of Stow papers and the archives of the dukes of Hamilton. It features 14 chapters, each looking at different aspects of Raeburn's professional career. There are international scholars contributing to Raeburn studies for the first time. It offers interdisciplinary perspectives setting a new agenda for Raeburn studies. It has traditional art analysis integrated with cultural, social, political and economic history. It includes much unpublished archival material.

Focusing on three celebrated northern European still life painters"Jan Brueghel, Daniel Seghers, and Jan Davidsz. de Heem"this book examines the emergence of the first garland painting in 1607-1608, and its subsequent transformation into a widely collected type of devotional image, curiosity, and decorative form. The first sustained study of the garland paintings, the book uses contextual and formal analysis to achieve two goals. One, it demonstrates how and why the paintings flourished in a number of contexts, ranging from an ecclesiastical center in Milan, to a Jesuit chapter house and private collections in Antwerp, to the Habsburg court in Vienna. Two, the book shows that when viewed over the course of the century, the images produced by Brueghel, Seghers and de Heem share important similarities, including an interest in self-referentiality and the exploration of pictorial form and materials. Using a range of evidence (inventories, period response, the paintings themselves), Susan Merriam shows how the pictures reconfigured the terms in which the devotional image was understood, and asked the viewer to consider in new ways how pictures are made and experienced.

A fresh interpretation of the group of Fragonard's paintings known as the 'figures de fantaisie', Fragonard and the Fantasy Figure: Painting the Imagination reconnects the fantasy figures with neglected visual traditions in European art and firmly situates them within the cultural and aesthetic contexts of eighteenth-century France. Prior scholarship has focused on the paintings' connections with portraiture, whereas this study relocates them within a tradition of fantasy figures, where resemblance was ignored or downplayed. The book defines Fragonard as a painter of the imagination and foregrounds the imaginary at a time when Enlightenment rationalism and Classical aesthetics contrived to delimit the imagination. The book unravels scholarly writing on these Fragonard paintings and examines the history of the fantasy figure from early modern Europe to eighteenth-century France. Emerging from this background is a view of Fragonard turning away from the academically sanctioned 'invention', towards more playful variants of the imaginary: fantasy and caprice. Melissa Percival demonstrates how fantasy figures engage both artists and viewers, allowing artists to unleash their imagination through displays of virtuosity and viewers to use their imagination to explore the paintings' unusual juxtapositions and humour.

This title comes with a new Introduction by Bethan Griffiths and Peter Milington. We are fortunate today that there is a far greater understanding and appreciation of our heritage, and how it should be cared for, than there was at the time J. Starkie Gardner's book was written. For the many people interested in and involved with the care and conservation of heritage ironwork "English Ironwork of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries" is an invaluable reference, not just for researching specific pieces but also for understanding the historic context of the ironwork of the period. It is also full of illustrations of once surviving examples in need of repair, and these photographs can give clues to their original form. Where ironwork has gone missing, the information can help to inform the design of replica work. There are few books on decorative historical ironwork and the small number there are highlight the fact that, overall, the subject of wrought ironwork has been insufficiently studied and is a rich field for cataloguing and research. Within the pages of Starkie Gardner's book are clues to the identification of further pieces of ironwork, particularly the many he did not cover, from which there is still much to learn. It is hoped that reissue of the book acts as an inspiration to those involved with the study, care and refurbishment of ironwork to continue the work he started in the recording and sharing of ironwork discoveries. However, the huge amount of surviving work of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries should not be forgotten as of this also too little is known; here again there is need for further cataloguing and research.