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Part of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts
François Thomas Germain (French, Paris 1726–1791 Paris, master 1748)
Date: 1757Accession Number: 33.165.1
Vincennes Manufactory (French, ca. 1740–1756)
Date: ca. 1752–53Accession Number: 50.211.168a, b, .169
Goldsmith: P R (British, early-mid 18th century)
Date: 1741Accession Number: 1976.155.23
Edme-Pierre Balzac (1705–ca. 1786, master 1739, recorded 1781)
Date: 1757–59Accession Number: 48.187.418a–c
Sèvres Manufactory (French, 1740–present)
Date: 1789Accession Number: 2008.529, .530
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Devoted to the decorative arts of seventeenth- and especially eighteenth-century France, The Wrightsman Galleries (522–529, 531–533, and 545–547) display the Museum's holdings of furniture, Savonnerie carpets, gilt bronze, Sèvres porcelain, silver, and gold boxes. Since the 1963 acquisition of the paneling from the Hôtel de Varengeville and the Palais Paar with funds given by Mr. and Mrs. Charles Wrightsman, these rooms have borne the Wrightsmans' name.
Enriching the Museum's already strong collections of French decorative arts, many of the objects and furnishings on display here were gifts of Mr. and Mrs. Wrightsman. This gallery is dominated by the elegant Neoclassical oak facade of a shop front that was erected on the Île Saint-Louis about 1775. It once housed one of Paris's many retailers of luxury goods and its glazed windows are now installed with French eighteenth-century silver, including a magnificent spiraling coffeepot by court goldsmith François Thomas Germain. The gallery also contains some of the Museum's finest examples of early Vincennes porcelain, as well as faience from the Niderviller and Sceaux factories. A superb selection of gold boxes incorporating enamels, precious and semiprecious stones, mother-of-pearl, and lacquer represent the most refined taste of French court circles.
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