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

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.

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 raisonnAc of paintings by Watteau, Pater and Lancret in Berlin and Potsdam and, more recently, on Antoine Watteau, French eighteenth-century collecting and the FAate galante. 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 da€?histoire de la€?art (Paris), and since 2006 she is Head of Academic Programs (History of Art and Archeology) at the Louvrea€?s Auditorium. Her research focuses on the history of taste, collections and museums in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Guillaume Faroult is Senior Curator at the MusAce 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 raisonnAc 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.