Enfilade

With the Rijksmuseum open once again, this book is especially timely. It’s due out in May from Yale UP:

Reinier Baarsen, Paris 1650-1900: Decorative Arts in the Rijksmuseum (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013), 608 pages, ISBN: 978-0300191295, $275.

From 1650 to 1900 Paris was the undisputed center of fashion and taste in Europe. Home to a unique concentration of artists, designers, patrons, critics, and a keen buying public, Paris was the city where trends were made and where novel types of objects, devised for new ways of life, were invented. This book traces the wonderful story of Parisian decorative arts from the reign of Louis XIV to the triumph of art nouveau, through a selection of 150 breathtaking, and often little-known, masterpieces from the collection of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. It features an exhilarating mixture of furniture, gilt bronze, tapestries, silver, watches, snuff-boxes, jewellery, Sèvres porcelain, and other ceramics, as well as some design drawings and engravings. Specially taken photographs reveal the daring design and beautiful execution of the work of some of the greatest artists and craftsmen of their time. Reinier Baarsen discusses the history and significance of each object, presenting the findings of much new research.

Reinier Baarsen is senior curator of furniture at the
Rijksmuseum.