The exceptional collection of French decorative arts in the J. Paul Getty Museum contains more than four hundred objects, most of them dating from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This gorgeously illustrated volume brings together forty-four objects from the Baroque and Régence periods, roughly corresponding to the reign of Louis XIV and the years immediately following his death in 1715. The selection includes richly veneered cabinets, commodes, and desks; carved tables and chairs; and gilt-bronze light fixtures and firedogs that exemplify the superior craftsmanship and elaborate design characteristic of the Baroque style.

 

Each object is described and analyzed in terms of its style, use, provenance and published history, as well as its construction and alterations, materials, and conservation. With its painstaking attention to detail, this sumptuous volume is the definitive catalogue of the J. Paul Getty Museum’s collection of French Baroque furniture and will be of interest to scholars, conservators, and all students of the French decorative arts.