November 2008

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This catalogue, the first of three volumes on the ancien régime decorative arts at the J. Paul Getty Museum, is a magnificent contribution to the growing family of catalogues on French decorative arts in America. The Getty’s French decorative arts form one of the finest parts of the museum’s collection, and the baroque and régence collection includes particularly spectacular pieces. Its backbone is the case furniture, which ranges in scale from a small veneered box (cat. 2) to an extraordinary cabinet-on-stand, supported by figures of Hippolyta and Hercules (cat. 3; Fig. 1). The furniture especially is far from run-of-the-mill, and so the catalogue reads not as a series of entries about standard forms, but as a record of the period’s most innovative designs. The collection is especially strong in furniture attributed to André-Charles Boulle, including the afore-mentioned cabinet on stand, the Dauphin’s coffers-on-stands, and two tables with legs designed with real bravura, with marquetry of extraordinary quality, combining wood and metal, all of which are sumptuously illustrated and thoroughly discussed.

The collection was founded by J. Paul Getty (1892-1976), who bought French furniture from the 1930s until his death, with various lulls. However, for a collection acquired so recently, remarkably little is known of Getty’s motivations, as Gillian Wilson notes in her introduction. For instance, it is not clear whether or not the expansion of the collection preceded Getty’s decision to build the villa at Malibu, or whether his ambition to create a museum led to a campaign of acquisitions. His response to French furniture, however, was unequivocal. On his first exposure to it in 1935, he wrote ‘I suddenly became aware that furniture could have great artistic and aesthetic merit…a blazing torch was applied, and my collector’s urge flared high’.

The collection as we now see it was very much shaped after his death by Getty’s curator, Wilson, who led the research for this publication. At first, she was building the collection in order to fill the 14 galleries at the new villa (Getty’s collection at his Los Angeles ranch house occupied two rooms only). In her introduction she is modest about her role, but this catalogue shows how judiciously she bought during an intense period of acquisition, especially in the 1970s and 80s, by which time most of the contents of this catalogue had arrived in Los Angeles. Indeed, the collection is a testimony to her taste and caution in such heady times. The catalogue has had to wait until now, when the museum’s rate of acquisitions has slowed, especially in the decorative arts.

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