The Wallace Collection

Catalogue of Furniture

by Peter Hughes

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Published by The Trustees of the Wallace Collection Now also available in paperback Voir cette page en français Summary | Reviews | Contents | Enquiries | Offline ordering

1667 pp. 235 mm × 185 mm (9¼" × 7¼") 384 colour pictures, 689 black and white illustrations and 33 diagrams and musical scores ISBN 0 900785 56 X In 3 cloth-bound volumes with slipcase £375 ISBN 0 900785 51 9 In 3 paper-bound volumes with slipcase £150

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obtainable from:	The Wallace Collection: Hertford House, Manchester Square, London W1U 3BN, England. Telephone: +44 207 563 9514 Facsimile: +44 207 486 3604 e-mail: mail@hertford.dircon.uk
or from:	The Internet Bookshop or The Book Pl@ce or Amazon.co.uk or through any good bookseller

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Summary

The finest collection of French furniture to be found outside France is displayed at the Wallace Collection in London and features prominently in the new three-volume Wallace Collection Catalogue of Furniture.

The collection, of over five hundred pieces, is rich in Boulle marquetry furniture, but also has veneered pieces made for the French crown, such as the chest-of-drawers from Louis XV’s bedroom at Versailles and three secretaires of the 1780s supplied by Riesener for Marie-Antoinette. The cabinet furniture is complemented by furnishing bronzes, among them two chandeliers by Caffiéri given by Louis XV to his eldest daughter. The collection is also remarkable for its forty-one French eighteenth-century clocks and barometers.

Peter Hughes, curator of furniture at the Wallace collection has spent fifteen years building on earlier research into the furniture collection published by the late Sir Francis Watson in 1956. Further information has come to light on the provenance of many pieces, with references to eighteenth- and nineteenth- century auction sales, and a number of attributions are reassessed. All 337 catalogue entries provide a full description, state the condition and trace the history of each piece of furniture, with comments on attribution and on sources of decoration. The catalogue text is richly illustrated with 384 colour plates, 689 black and white images and 33 diagrams and musical scores. The Introduction to Volume I recounts the parts played by the 3rd and 4th Marquesses of Hertford and by Sir Richard Wallace in acquiring the furniture. The appendices in Volume III explain the family inventories and give a picture of the vanished part of the Hertford-Wallace collection, the tapestries sold in 1876 and the furniture bequeathed by Lady Wallace to her residuary legatee, John Murray Scott, and later dispersed. They also provide a bibliography, glossary and index.

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Reviews

"...will be hailed, and rightly so, as a work of the greatest distinction and erudition... In this catalogue the greatest importance is attached to the descriptions. They are not confined to the external appearance of a piece but extend to an analysis of constructional and mechanical features, a record of all marks and a condition report. The written descriptions are supplemented (not replaced) by detailed photographs and diagrams. Much more has been discovered about the history of some of the pieces, largely the result of a close reading by the author of eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century sale catalogues. Some items now have a pedigree worthy of an important old-master painting... Hughes’s catalogue is a remarkable tour de force. It is replete with information and will be a worthy companion on the shelves of specialists and enthusiasts of the decorative arts to the outstanding three-volume catalogue of Sèvres porcelain in the Wallace Collection by Rosalind Savill published in 1988. Its production is of the same high standard and the sub-editing is impeccable."
Sir Geoffrey de Bellaigue The Burlington Magazine