Georges de La Tour, now considered one of the greatest painters of 17th-century France, was virtually forgotten until the early 20th century. Since the major retrospective in Paris in 1972, new paintings have continued to emerge. This beautiful book is a complete overview of La Tour's work and will serve as the catalogue for a major exhibition opening at the National Gallery in October 1996. 40 b&w illustrations. 150 color plates.
The book delves into the display principles of art within early modern Roman palaces, highlighting how various elements conveyed intricate artistic, social, and political messages. It emphasizes the opulent settings that served as models for aristocratic residences across Europe. Additionally, it traces the origins of the modern art gallery concept back to these Roman Baroque palazzi, illustrating how many museum exhibits are rooted in this historical context.
"This volume of essays offers new arguments regarding the significance of the social biography of art and the transformative power of ownership. It realigns the traditional art-historical paradigm that focuses on the moment of an object's origin and instead considers the longue durée of ownership. Whereas the term provenance may call to mind little more than a list of owners or the legal questions raised by competing entitlement claims, the essays in this book demonstrate that a nuanced approach recuperates important, even dramatic, aspects of the history of art. The authors present a broad perspective on provenance, investigating examples from Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas, and from ancient archaeology to conceptual art. They explore how stories of ownership are attached to objects, analyze important distinctions between provenance and provenience, and show how provenance can be monetized, politicized, suppressed, or otherwise instrumentalized."--Page 4 of cover.