French Rococo Ébénisterie in the J. Paul Getty Museum


Book Description

The first comprehensive catalogue of the Getty Museum’s significant collection of French Rococo ébénisterie furniture. This catalogue focuses on French ébénisterie furniture in the Rococo style dating from 1735 to 1760. These splendid objects directly reflect the tastes of the Museum’s founder, J. Paul Getty, who started collecting in this area in 1938 and continued until his death in 1976. The Museum’s collection is particularly rich in examples created by the most talented cabinet masters then active in Paris, including Bernard van Risenburgh II (after 1696–ca. 1766), Jacques Dubois (1694–1763), and Jean-François Oeben (1721–1763). Working for members of the French royal family and aristocracy, these craftsmen excelled at producing veneered and marquetried pieces of furniture (tables, cabinets, and chests of drawers) fashionable for their lavish surfaces, refined gilt-bronze mounts, and elaborate design. These objects were renowned throughout Europe at a time when Paris was considered the capital of good taste. The entry on each work comprises both a curatorial section, with description and commentary, and a conservation report, with construction diagrams. An introduction by Anne-Lise Desmas traces the collection’s acquisition history, and two technical essays by Arlen Heginbotham present methodologies and findings on the analysis of gilt-bronze mounts and lacquer. The free online edition of this open-access publication is available at www.getty.edu/publications/rococo/ and includes zoomable, high-resolution photography. Also available are free PDF, EPUB, and Kindle/MOBI downloads of the book, and JPG downloads of the main catalogue images.




European Post-medieval Tapestries and Related Hangings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art


Book Description

Tapestry making flourished in the major centers of western Europe from the fourteenth through the nineteenth centuries. Thousands of tapestries were woven as special commissions for church, crown, and nobility. This publication is a comprehensive catalogue of the Museum's collection of tapestries and allied works made after the Middle Ages.-- Metropolitan Museum of Art website.







Divagations


Book Description

"This is a book just the way I don't like them," the father of French Symbolism, StŽphane MallarmŽ, informs the reader in his preface to Divagations: "scattered and with no architecture." On the heels of this caveat, MallarmŽ's diverting, discursive, and gorgeously disordered 1897 masterpiece tumbles forth--and proves itself to be just the sort of book his readers like most. The salmagundi of prose poems, prose-poetic musings, criticism, and reflections that is Divagations has long been considered a treasure trove by students of aesthetics and modern poetry. If MallarmŽ captured the tone and very feel of fin-de-sicle Paris, he went on to captivate the minds of the greatest writers of the twentieth century--from ValŽry and Eliot to Paul de Man and Jacques Derrida. This was the only book of prose he published in his lifetime and, in a new translation by Barbara Johnson, is now available for the first time in English as MallarmŽ arranged it. The result is an entrancing work through which a notoriously difficult-to-translate voice shines in all of its languor and musicality. Whether contemplating the poetry of Tennyson, the possibilities of language, a masturbating priest, or the transporting power of dance, MallarmŽ remains a fascinating companion--charming, opinionated, and pedantic by turns. As an expression of the Symbolist movement and as a contribution to literary studies, Divagations is vitally important. But it is also, in Johnson's masterful translation, endlessly mesmerizing.




Intentions


Book Description




Building an Emergency Plan


Book Description

Building an Emergency Plan provides a step-by-step guide that a cultural institution can follow to develop its own emergency preparedness and response strategy. This workbook is divided into three parts that address the three groups generally responsible for developing and implementing emergency procedures—institution directors, emergency preparedness managers, and departmental team leaders—and discuss the role each should play in devising and maintaining an effective emergency plan. Several chapters detail the practical aspects of communication, training, and forming teams to handle the safety of staff and visitors, collections, buildings, and records. Emergencies covered include natural events such as earthquakes or floods, as well as human-caused emergencies, such as fires that occur during renovation. Examples from the Barbados Museum and Historical Society, the Museo de Arte Popular Americano in Chile, the Mystic Seaport Museum in Connecticut, and the Seattle Art Museum show how cultural institutions have prepared for emergencies relevant to their sites, collections, and regions.




Our Fathers Have Told Us


Book Description

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.




The J. Paul Getty Museum Guidebook


Book Description

This is the second edition of the original guidebook to the J. Paul Getty Museum’s collection. The book introduces the collection, as divided into Greek and Roman antiquities, European paintings, and French decorative arts.