At the Frick, a sumptuous and revelatory exhibition on the seventeenth-century designer Luigi Valadier
Heavenly earthenware at the Frick
The colorful earthenware known as faience is an especially appealing category of French ceramics. Beginning this fall, the Frick Collection is exhibiting one of the finest private collections of early faience.
The ancien regime’s master of precious metals: Celebrating Pierre Gouthiere at the Frick
This month the Frick opens Pierre Gouthière: Virtuoso Gilder at the French Court, the first show devoted to the work in gilded metal—traditionally called bronze d’oré in French—by an artist whose achievements placed him among the finest French masters of the eighteenth century.
Of Meissen men…and women at the Frick
Vitreous, white, and often delicately translucent, porcelain was invented in China as early as the seventh century, but Western attempts to reproduce the Chinese miracle failed until the dawn of the eighteenth century, when the Saxon ruler Augustus the Strong pressed into his service the young Berlin alchemist Johann Friedrich Böttger and commanded him to enrich the Saxon coffers by …
New exhibition of Renaissance and Baroque bronzes at the Frick Collection
New York City’s Frick Collection recently opened an exhibition of Renaissance and Baroque bronzes from the collection of Janine and J. Tomilson Hill. Displayed are thirty-three statuettes, sculptures, and a relief by masters of the Italian, German, Dutch, and French schools of the late fifteenth into the eighteenth century. One highlight is a pair of bronzes titled Sleeping Hermaphrodite and …
Inspired by antiques: Chinoiserie armchair
This week I came across a Georgian armchair that was recently offered at Christie’s South Kensington in a sale aptly titled “An English Look.” This chair—with its intricate fretwork, japanned wood, and fanciful imagery—typifies the style of chinoiserie that was popular in the decorative arts beginning in the 17th century as trade brought exotic new wares from Asia to the …