The second book in the “Discover� series, this illuminating study explores Liotard’s little-known The Lavergne Family Breakfast (1754), widely regarded as a pastel masterpiece   Jean-Etienne Liotard’s The Lavergne Family Breakfast, acquired by the National Gallery in 2019, is one of the Gallery’s most important eighteenth-century pictures and the artist’s largest and most ambitious pastel. Last exhibited in 1754, when Liotard brought the pastel from Lyon to London (an incredible feat in itself given the fragility of pastel), it has hardly been seen in public since. Exploring the pastel medium, Liotard’s itinerant career and the stories behind the objects he depicts, this catalogue puts Liotard and The Lavergne Family Breakfast in the spotlight.   Liotard was a flamboyant artist and unusually well travelled for his time, and his own journeys across the length and breadth of Europe are considered alongside the voyages implicit in the components of the still life: coffee, porcelain and sugar. This discussion allows much wider elements of social history and the histories of travel and trade to be woven into the book. This beautifully illustrated publication offers readers a fresh perspective on the eighteenth century and an accessible introduction to a particularly idiosyncratic and gifted artist.   Published by National Gallery Global/Distributed by Yale University Press   Exhibition Schedule:   The National Gallery, London (November 16, 2023–March 3, 2024)

As the official architects of Napoleon, Charles Percier (1764-1838) and Pierre-Francois-Leonard Fontaine (1762-1853) designed interiors that responded to the radical ideologies and collective forms of destruction that took place during the French Revolution. The architects visualized new forms of imperial sovereignty by inverting the symbols of monarchy and revolution, constructing meeting rooms resembling military encampments and gilded thrones that replaced the Bourbon lily with Napoleonic bees. Yet in the wake of political struggle, each foundation stone that the architects laid for the new imperial regime was accompanied by an awareness of the contingent nature of sovereign power. Contributing fresh perspectives on the architecture, decorative arts, and visual culture of revolutionary France, this book explores how Percier and Fontaine's desire to build structures of permanence and their inadvertent reliance upon temporary architectural forms shaped a new awareness of time, memory, and modern political identity in France.

Founded in 1968, the Metropolitan Museum Journal is a blind, peer-reviewed scholarly journal published annually that features original research on the history, interpretation, conservation, and scientific examination of works of art in the Museum's collection. Its scope encompasses the diversity of artistic practice from antiquity to the present day. The Journal encourages contributions offering critical and innovative approaches that will further our understanding of works of art.

When Louis XVI was guillotined on January 21, 1793, vast networks of production that had provided splendor and sophistication to the royal court were severed. Although the king’s royal possessions—from drapery and tableware to clocks and furniture suites—were scattered and destroyed, many of the artists who made them found ways to survive. This book explores the fabrication, circulation, and survival of French luxury after the death of the king. Spanning the final years of the ancien régime from the 1790s to the first two decades of the nineteenth century, this richly illustrated book positions luxury within the turbulent politics of dispersal, disinheritance, and dispossession. Exploring exceptional works created from silver, silk, wood, and porcelain as well as unrealized architectural projects, Iris Moon presents new perspectives on the changing meanings of luxury in the revolutionary and Napoleonic periods, a time when artists were forced into hiding, exile, or emigration. Moon draws on her expertise as a curator to revise conventional accounts of the so-called Louis XVI style, arguing that it was only after the revolutionary auctions liquidated the king’s collections that their provenance accrued deeper cultural meanings as objects with both a royal imprimatur and a threatening reactionary potential. Lively and accessible, this thought-provoking study will be of interest to curators, art historians, scholars, and students of the decorative arts as well as specialists in the French Revolution.

Handsomely designed and richly illustrated, this publication surveys the magnificent spectrum of projects undertaken by French architect and interior designer Charles Percier (1764-1838). After gaining an illustrious reputation for supervising the scenery at the Paris Opera during the French Revolution, Percier was later appointed by Napoleon Bonaparte. With the Emperor's support, he developed the opulent versions of neoclassicism closely associated with the Napoleonic era, and now known as Directoire style and Empire style. Percier worked on the renovation or redecoration of many of France's royal palaces, including the Louvre, the Tuileries, and the chateaux of Malmaison, Saint-Cloud, and Fontainebleau. The full scope and variety of Percier's design projects are revealed in this book, which also includes archival material detailing Percier's relationships with patrons and peers. Published in association with Bard Graduate Center Exhibition Schedule: Bard Graduate Center (11/18/16-02/15/17) Chateau de Fontainebleau (03/18/17-06/19/17)