Monet found subjects in his immediate surroundings, as he painted the people and places he knew best.

Peek inside two similar Bonnie Cashin evening skirts and compare the details of their construction.

Color is not entirely eschewed in Joseon white ware. On the contrary, white ware painted with cobalt blue was highly prized, perhaps even more than undecorated white ware.

The increasingly erotic character of Rodin’s sculpture in the 1880s can be explained by his preoccupation with two highly charged literary sources. These were Dante’s Inferno and Baudelaire’s The Flowers of Evil.

Nineteenth-century American architecture and furniture design was characterized by a parade of different styles that purported to take their inspiration from the design vocabulary of the past.

… although Americans had begun to identify themselves as a nation, they were divided by sectional interests that deepened with rapid industrialization and the question of slavery.

This beautifully illustrated book celebrates the fortieth anniversary of Jacqueline Kennedy's emergence as America's first lady and explores her enduring global influence on style and fashion. An in-depth look at the clothes and the era demonstrates how Jacqueline Kennedy became the beacon of style, whose legacy is still with us today. This book presents a selection of gowns, suits, dresses, ad accessories from the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum against a backdrop of personal notes, artifacts, and anecdotes provided by such White House insiders as historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. and horticulturist and friend of the first lady, Rachel Lambert Mellon. Combining original and new photography, the volume presents images of the first lady that have rarely been seen, as well as photographs that have become part of the national consciousness. This unique perspective on the Kennedy White House years reveals the impact Jacqueline Kennedy had on the world, on America's vision of itself, and on the world, on America's vision of itself, and on the role played by the first lady in the life of the nation. This book accompanies a major exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, from May through July 2001. The show will travel to the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum in Boston as well as the Corcoran gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

The rapid shift from an agrarian to industrial economy and the growth of the business sector, with their attendant social and economic dislocations, spurred the development of a powerful ideology in which private and public spheres were considered antithetical.

The Neoclassical period in Europe produced a host of gifted sculptors of whom it has sometimes been remarked that their clay models exhibit more spirit than their finished marbles. Sketches and models of terracotta (clay that has been baked for greater longevity) are much like drawings in offering extraordinary insights into the creative process. A pan-European practice, modeling was centered in Rome, site of the collections of antiquities that were the chief inspiration of artists. This publication offers the first comprehensive overview of Neoclassical modeling in the years from 1740 to 1840. The catalogue, numbering 142 objects, analyzes modeling at every stage, from the brusque preliminary impulse of the artist to the highly finished statuettes that were regarded as works of art in their own right. Many of the greatest names are represented here: from France, Bouchardon, Pigalle, Pajou, Houdon, Roland, Clodion, Stouf, and Chinard; from Germany, Dannecker and Schadow; from Italy, Canova and Pacetti; from Sweden, the magnificent Sergel. Some artists are examined in considerable depth, with as many as nine works. Lesser-known talents who merit greater attention and emerge heroically are the Swiss Sonnenschein and the Russians Kozlovsky and Martos. The sections of the catalogue, each preceded by an introductory essay, examine the sculptors' techniques and training and explore prominent themes, such as terracotta's role in the statuary of Great Men and in tomb sculpture, depictions of Arcadia and the loves of the gods, scenes from the Iliad and Ovid's Metamorphoses. Special attention is paid to the ancient visual and literary sources that motivated these generations of discerning and erudite sculptors. Short biographies of all of the artists discussed are included.