Joséphine Bonaparte, future consort of Napoléon; Térézia Tallien, the most beautiful woman in Europe; and Juliette Récamier, muse of intellectuals, cast off the rigid clothing regime of the past. Overcoming forced marriages and imprisonment during the Terror, they became the first self-made fashion celebrities. From one year to the next, the Three Graces led a rebellion against corsets, petticoats, and enormous skirts. Their flowing garments not only embodied freedom for modern women, but also marked the emergence of global capitalism, shopping culture, and the rise of powerful style influencers. Joséphine combined the style of Black women from her Caribbean childhood with garments from India and Kashmir to fuse cultures and bend gender rules. Her best friend and style collaborator, Térézia, celebrated the female body and her own erotic independence. Juliette pioneered a radical minimalism, posing for portraits in pure-white, virginal gowns. After the French Revolution, a conservative reaction would keep women “buttoned up” for two centuries, making the fashion-forward story of the Three Graces even more resonant today.

This book offers a new look at works by notable French artists represented in the collection of the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Color reproductions of fifty-eight works-ranging from chalk drawings by Charles Francois Daubigny and Edgar Degas to woodcuts by Paul Gauguin and lithographs by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec-accompany important reconsiderations of well-known works and print series. Essays by five prominent scholars consider the political, social, cultural, and market conditions that governed and motivated printmaking and drawing and examine how key artists contributed to the development of the graphic arts in 19th-century France. The volume concludes with a complete checklist of works included in the accompanying exhibition. Distributed for the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute Exhibition Schedule: The Frick Collection(03/12/13-06/16/13)

Of the six Impressionist painters whose first exhibition scandalized and fascinated Paris in 1874, Berthe Morisot was the only woman. She reached a pinnacle of artistic achievement despite the restraints society placed on her sex, adroitly combining her artistic ambitions with a rewarding family life. Anne Higonnet brings fully to life an accomplished artist and her world.