The notional day begins with the act of rising from bed and is exemplified in this installation with an exceptionally rare survivor, a bed with side curtains and a "flying" canopy suspended from the ceiling, a form known as the lit à la duchesse (or "duchess style bed").
Traditionally, this type of bed was reserved for the most formal, prestigious bedroom in the house and was used by important members of the family to receive visitors. In this exhibition, the impressive set of embroidered yellow silk-satin hangings, which measure fourteen feet tall when assembled, is displayed for the first time since arriving at the Getty Museum in 1979.
The pursuit of daily correspondence and business affairs follows in the next section, with furniture and accessories related to writing, record keeping, and document filing.
Financiers and merchants often worked in offices, called bureaux, located within the home (forerunners to the modern home office) but typically set apart from the domestic sphere, as portrayed in Maurice-Quentin de la Tour’s pastel portrait of Gabriel Bernard de Rieux (1687– 1745), a prominent member of the Paris Parliament. The interior depicted in the almost lifesize portrait of Président de Rieux is evoked in all its detail by the adjacent display of many similar objects, arranged in comparable positions so that their artistic and physical characteristics, as well as their scale, can be conveyed.
The activity of collecting — particularly art — is explored in a section of the exhibition, which evokes a private Parisian galerie. Erudition and refined taste were visually expressed through the assembly and accumulation, in accordance with one’s means, of choice works which, when arranged and displayed in a dedicated room, could provide occasion for private enjoyment by the single visitor or convivial appreciation by a group of interested guests. The assembled works often reflected the knowledge of the collector and his chosen models of virtue, drawn from the classical canon of books he read, especially the sacred scriptures, or the epic and mythological stories of ancient Greece and Rome.
In mid-18th century Paris, the main meal was customarily consumed at midday anda section of the exhibition considers the portrayal of the ingredients of the meal made under the vastly prolific and intensely versatile direction of the artist Jean-Baptiste Oudry (1686–1755). These include: still life paintings of The Four Elements painted by Oudry (which show game, fish, poultry, and vegetables); a pair of wool and silk tapestries portraying picnickers and hunters; his engraved illustration, featuring a lavishly set table, for the tale of The City Rat and the Country Rat, in the 1755 edition of Jean de La Fontaine’s famous animal fables; and the Machine d’Argent, a still life sculpture in silver, by François-Thomas Germain, under Oudry’s intervention, which features a rabbit, two game birds, several types of mushrooms, and a variety of vegetables.
In order to better understand “life after sunset” (before the age of electric lighting), the penultimate gallery of the exhibition focuses on two types of leisure occupations: musicmaking and game-playing. In order to recreate an era when night-time gatherings were dependent upon the illumination cast by firelight and candlelight, the overall light-levels in the final gallery are lowered. A five-legged card table is installed in its open, extended position, with candles and candlesticks placed in the recesses, to suggest how the objects might have been used together. The installation also includes an actual Parisian harpsichord of 1754 (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), which survives with both its original sound box and its original lacquered surface decoration of chinoiserie motifs.
The exhibition is on view at the J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Center, Los Angeles from April 26 through August 7, 2011 before traveling to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, where it will be on view from September 18 through December 10, 2011.
Captions and Credits:
(1) François Boucher (French, 1703 - 1770), Lady Fastening Her Garter, 1742. Oil on canvas, 52.5 x 66.5 cm (20 11/16 x 26 3/16 in.). Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, Spain. Image © Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid.
(2.) French set of bed hangings, about 1690 - 1715; 1993. Silk satin; cording; velour; silk embroidery; damask panels with linen linings. Object (overall): H: 415.9 x W: 181.6 x D: 182.9 cm (H: 13 ft. 7 3/4 in. x W: 5 ft. 11 1/2 in. x D: 6 ft.). The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.
(3.) Movement maker Jean Romilly (French, 1714 - 1796, master 1752) and Case attributed to Charles Cressent (French, 1685 - 1768, master 1719) and Bracket by Jean-Joseph de Saint-Germain (French, 1719 - 1791, master 1748). Clock on Bracket, 1758. Gilt bronze, enameled metal. Dimensions: Object: H: 127 x W: 45.1 x D: 18.4 cm (4 ft. 2 in. x 1 ft. 5 3/4 in. x 7 1/4 in.). The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
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