PROMENADES ON PAPER: EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FRENCH DRAWINGS FROM THE BIBLIOTHÈQUE NATIONALE DE FRANCE

Edited by Esther Bell, Sarah Grandin, Corinne Le Bitouzé, and Anne Leonard, with the assistance of Pauline Chougnet and Chloé Perrot

Essays by Pauline Chougnet and Corinne Le Bitzouzé, Charlotte Guichard, and Meredith Martin

With Contributions by Jean-François Bèdard, Esther Bell, Sarah Catala, Pauline Chougnet, Johanna Daniel, Marie-Anne Dupuy-Vachey, Sarah Grandin, Alastair Laing, Corinne Le Bitouzé, Sidonie Lemeux-Fraitot, Anne Leonard, Arnaud Maillet, Chloé Perrot, Perrin Stein, Richard Taws, and Hannah Williams

$50.00 Hardcover

Promenades on Paper explores the largely unmined collection of eighteenth-century drawings held in the department of prints and photography of the Bibliothèque nationale de France. Among the 50 featured artists are some of France’s most celebrated eighteenth-century practitioners, including Madeleine Basseporte (1701–1780), François Boucher (1703–1770), Gabriel de Saint Aubin (1724–1780), and Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732–1806), alongside architects, designers, and printmakers. Scattered across the institution’s vast reserves, these drawings have until now served primarily documentary purposes. In this catalogue, leading international scholars introduce more than 80 drawings, albums, and sketchbooks—many published here for the first time—and reveal how artists used drawing to record, critique, and try to improve the world around them.

Esther Bell is the Robert and Martha Berman Lipp Chief Curator, Sarah Grandin is the Clark-Getty Curatorial Fellow, and Anne Leonard is the Manton Curator of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs, all at the Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA. Corinne Le Bitouzé is the conservateur général, adjoint au directeur du Département des estampes et de la photographie at the Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris.

272 Pages
200 color + b-w illus.