Popular Nineteenth Century Painting: A Dictionary of European Genre Painters
Includes 73 colour illustrations and over 1500 b&w illustrations. [Excerpts from front jacket flap]. The cardinals and cavaliers, serving wenches and dandies, not to mention the cows and cats and dogs which adorned the drawing room walls of 19th century Europe are analysed in detail for the first time in this unique dictionary. It is a survey of the subject matter of 19th century painting, concentrating particularly on the new theories and treatments of popular taste. Nearly 4,000 European artists are classified ranging widely from 'Monks' to 'Monkeys', from 'Arab genre' to 'Wildlife' Backed up by 1,500 illustrations, this guide will prove an important aid to the attribution of unsigned or indistinctly signed 19th pictures, and an essential reference book for scholars, dealers, auctioneers and collectors. At the same time it will be of considerable fascination to anyone interested in the pictorial imagination of the period covering as it does the whole of Europe at a time of enormous change, when a new wealthy patronage was emerging with new values and new interests; a move from the grand ennobling pictures of classicism to the genre scenes of everyday life or imaginary times past. The authors, Philip Hook and Mark Potimore, who run the 19th century picture department of Christie's, have drawn on their lengthy experience in the field, together with the enormous resource of material available to them to produce this novel and authoritative survey.
