Delicious Decadence – The Rediscovery of French Eighteenth-Century Painting in the Nineteenth Century

Guillaume Faroult is Senior Curator at the Musée du Louvre in charge of French Paintings of the Eighteenth Century and British Paintings. He has curated many major exhibitions in these fields and in 2007 edited a catalogue raisonné of the paintings (mostly French of the Eighteenth Century) from the collection of Louis La Caze, now at the Louvre. He has published extensively about David, Fragonard and French eighteenth and nineteenth century collecting.Monica Preti is an art historian who received her PhD in History and Civilization at the European University Institute (Fiesole, Florence). She is a former Research fellow at the Institut national d’histoire de l’art (Paris), and since 2006 she is Head of Academic Programs (History of Art and Archeology) at the Louvre’s Auditorium. Her research focuses on the history of taste, collections and museums in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Dr Christoph Martin Vogtherr has been Director of the Wallace Collection since 2011 and was previously Curator of Pictures pre-1800. Before joining the Collection he was Paintings Curator at the Foundation of Prussian Palaces and Gardens, Potsdam, Germany (1998-2007). In 2010 he published the catalogue raisonné of paintings by Watteau, Pater and Lancret in Berlin and Potsdam and, more recently, on Antoine Watteau, French eighteenth-century collecting and the Fête galante.

'Ten tightly focused essays ... Above all, the new volume indicates the wealth of primary material available to demonstrate the depth of interest in eighteenth-century French painting before the collection and publications by the Goncourt brothers in the 1860s.' Burlington Magazine '... surprising and important.' Art Newspaper

• Contents: Introduction, Guillaume Faroult, Monica Preti and Christoph Martin Vogtherr; The ’rediscovery’ of 18th-century French painting before La Caze: introductory notes, Monica Preti; The taste for 18th-century painting and the art market between 1830 and 1860 as regards the La Caze collection, Marie-Martine Dubreuil; Watteau and Chardin, ’the two most truly painters of the entire French School’: the rediscovery of Watteau and Chardin in France, between 1820 and 1860, Guillaume Faroult; Collectors of 18th-century French art in London: 1800-1850, Jon Whiteley; ’Elegant depravity and irresponsible gaiety’: the Murray of Henderland Collection and the Scottish taste for French 18th-century art, Frances Fowle; ’Ah! que c’est français!’: Thoré-Bürger and 18th-century French art, Frances Suzman Jowell; Aesthetic, economic and political issues of the exhibition Paintings of the French School from Private Collections of 1860, Pauline Prévost-Marcilhacy; Early exhibitions of French 18th-century art in Berlin and the birth of Watteau research, Christoph Martin Vogtherr; The National Gallery in the 19th century and French 18th-century painting, Humphrey Wine; French 18th-century painting in England and the opening of the Wallace Collection, Stephen Duffy; Exhibitions listing; Bibliography; Index of names.