30/31 May Georgina Cole

Diploma Lecture Series 2012
Absolutism to enlightenment: European art and culture 1665-1765
Revealing and concealing in the rococo interior
Georgina Cole
30 / 31 May 2012
Lecture summary:
The eighteenth century in France is above all the age of the interior. In architecture, furniture design and
decoration there is an explosion of interest in new spaces, forms and techniques. Dramatic changes are
made to the layout of the interior; dozens of new types of seating, storage, and surface furniture are devised;
and the enhancement of interior surfaces with mirrors, wall lights, and ornament reaches a new height. This
lecture explores the extraordinary world of the eighteenth-century interior through architecture, furniture
design, and genre painting. It examines the elite home as a complex network of public and private spaces
that accommodated the dual desire for display and retreat. In so doing, it aims to demonstrate that the
interior was not just a passive setting for the romantic, political and domestic intrigues of everyday life, but an
arena that shaped behaviour and desire.
Slide list:
* 1. Salon ovale de la Princesse, Hôtel de Soubise, Paris, designed by Germain Boffrand, 1735-40
2. Plates from Juste-Nathan Boucher, Livre des meubles, 1772-1779, Paris
3. Boiseries from the Hôtel de Varengeville, c. 1736-1752, Metropolitan Museum of Art
4. François Boucher, Le déjeuner, 1739, oil on canvas, 81.5 x 65.5 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris
5. Louis Le Vau, Hôtel Lambert, staircase and vestibule, 1640-44, 2 Rue Saint-Louis en l’Ile, Paris
6. Enfilades in the Château de Versailles
7. Louis Le Vau, Hôtel Lambert; Charles Le Brun, Galerie d’Hercules, 1640-44, Hôtel Lambert
8. Louis Le Vau, Hôtel Lambert, first floor plan,1640-44, 2 Rue Saint-Louis en l’Ile, Paris
9. Louis Le Vau, Hôtel Lambert, second floor plan,1640-44, 2 Rue Saint-Louis en l’Ile, Paris
10. Jacques-François Blondel, ground floor of a grand hotel, Architecture Français, Paris, 1762
11. Concealed door in the queen’s bedroom, Château de Versailles
12. Germain Boffrand, Salon ovale de la Princesse, Hôtel de Soubise, Paris, 1735-40
13. Hôtel de Soubise, first floor plan, Alexis Delamair and Germain Boffrand 1704-1735, Paris
14. Germain Boffrand, Salon ovale de la Princesse, Hôtel de Soubise, Paris, 1735-40
15. Charles-Joseph Natoire, Cupid and Psyche overdoors, 1735-1740, Hôtel de Soubise
16. Germain Boffrand, ceiling, Salon ovale de la Princesse, Hôtel de Soubise, Paris, 1735-40
17. Germain Boffrand, mirrors, Salon ovale de la Princesse, Hôtel de Soubise, Paris, 1735-40
18. Germain Boffrand, Salon ovale de la Princesse, Hôtel de Soubise, Paris, 1735-40
Proudly sponsored by
19. Pierre Louis Dumesnil the younger, Card Players in a Drawing Room, c.1751-74, oil on canvas, 79.1 x
98.4cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
20. Interior of an upholsterer’s shop, Receuil des planches, Encyclopédie, vol 8, 1771
21. Claude-Louis Bergat, Bergère en cabriolet, c. 1760-70, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
22. Nicolas-Quinibert Foliot, Canapé, 1754-56, Paris, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
* 23. Jean-François de Troy, The Declaration of Love, ca.1724-25, oil on canvas, 64.8 x 54 cm, Williams
College Museum of Art, Massachusetts
24. Anon, Design for a Canapé à confidante, French, c.1770-90, graphite on paper, Metropolitan Museum of
Art, New York
25. Unknown artisan, Writing and card table, Paris, c.1725, Getty Museum, Los Angeles
26. Unknown artisan, Writing and card table, Paris, c.1725, Getty Museum, Los Angeles
27. Unknown artisan, Writing and card table, Paris, c.1725, Getty Museum, Los Angeles
28. Unknown artisan, Writing and card table, Paris, c.1725, Getty Museum, Los Angeles
29. Unknown artisan, Writing and card table, Paris, c.1725, Getty Museum, Los Angeles
30. Unknown artisan, Writing and card table, Paris, c.1725, Getty Museum, Los Angeles
31. Unknown artisan, Writing and card table, Paris, c.1725, Getty Museum, Los Angeles
32. Unknown artisan, Writing and card table, Paris, c.1725, Getty Museum, Los Angeles
33. Unknown artisan, Writing and card table, Paris, c.1725, Getty Museum, Los Angeles
34. David Roentgen, Mechanical gaming table, c.1780-83, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
* 35. Jean-François Oeben, Mechanical writing table, c. 1761-63, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
36. Jean-François Oeben, Mechanical writing table, c. 1761-63, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
37. Jean-François Oeben, Mechanical writing table, c. 1761-63, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
38. Jean-François Oeben, Mechanical writing table, c. 1761-63, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
39. Jean-François Oeben, Mechanical writing table, c. 1761-63, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
40. After François Guérin, Madame de Pompadour and Her Daughter Alexandrine, c.1763, private collection
41. Jean-Henri Riesener, Combined jewel casket, secretaire and writing table, c.1775, V&A, London
42. Jean-Henri Riesener, Combined jewel casket, secretaire and writing table, c.1775, V&A, London
43. Jean-Henri Riesener, Combined jewel casket, secretaire and writing table, c.1775, V&A, London
44. Jean-Henri Riesener, Combined jewel casket, secretaire and writing table, c.1775, V&A, London
45. Jean-Henri Riesener, Combined jewel casket, secretaire and writing table, c.1775, V&A, London
46. Jean-Henri Riesener, Combined jewel casket, secretaire and writing table, c.1775, V&A, London
47. Jean-Henri Riesener, Combined jewel casket, secretaire and writing table, c.1775, V&A, London
* 48. François Boucher, Le déjeuner, 1739, oil on canvas, 81.5 x 65.5 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris
* 49. François Boucher, A Lady Fastening Her Garter, 1742, Madrid: Thyssen-Bornemisza
50. François Boucher, Woman on a Daybed, 1743, oil on canvas, 57.2 x 68.3 cm, Frick Collection
51. François Boucher, Madame de Pompadour, 1756, oil on canvas, 212 × 164 cm, Alte Pinakothek, Munich
Reference:
Mimi Hellman, “Furniture, sociability, and the work of leisure in eighteenth-century France”, Eighteenth-Century
Studies 32, no. 4 (1999): 415-445
John Whitehead, The French Interior in the Eighteenth Century (London: Lawrence King, 1992)
Dena Goodman and Kathryn Norberg, Furnishing the eighteenth century: What furniture can tell us about the
European and American Past (New York: Routledge, 2007)
Joan de Jean, The Age of Comfort (New York: Bloomsbury, 2009)
Michael Dennis, Court and Garden: From the French Hôtel to the City of Modern Architecture (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT
Press, 1986)
Salon ovale de la Princesse, Hôtel de Soubise, Paris, designed by Germain Boffrand, 1735-40
Jean-François de Troy, The Declaration of Love, ca.1724-25, oil on canvas, 64.8 x 54 cm, Williams College
Museum of Art, Massachusetts
Jean-François Oeben, Mechanical writing table, c. 1761-63, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
François Boucher, Le déjeuner, 1739, oil on canvas, 81.5 x 65.5 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris
François Boucher, A Lady Fastening Her Garter, 1742, Madrid: Thyssen-Bornemisza
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