Anne Vallayer-Coster (1744–1818) was one of the most talented still-life painters of the French school. Her exquisite paintings, today located in some of the world’s finest museums, were admired and collected by many of her contemporaries, including Marie Antoinette, who became the artist’s most important patron.

This book, the first devoted to Vallayer-Coster in over 30 years, presents a stunning array of the artist’s still-life works, many of which have never before been reproduced in color. Recently rediscovered works, including three royal portraits from the collection of Versailles and a hitherto unknown pastel of Marie-Antoinette, are published here for the first time. The authors draw on the most current research to examine Vallayer-Coster’s relationship with landscape painter Joseph Vernet; her response to her immediate predecessor, still-life painter Jean-Siméon Chardin; her role with contemporary collectors of her art; and her place in the larger context of the eighteenth-century art world. The book also includes new archival and conservation findings and an illustrated index of extant paintings by Vallayer-Coster.

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This volume showcases and explores a rich and varied collection of Asante royal regalia in the broader context of Asante art. The Asante Kingdom, founded around 1701 in the Gold Coast (now Ghana), was renowned for gold, the foundation of its wealth and power. For centuries they mined this metal and traded it with northerners on the Saharan caravan routes and Europeans along the Atlantic coast. The earliest examples of Asante gold were recovered from the wreck of the Whydah, a slave ship that sank off Cape Cod in 1717. The Power of Gold focuses on a dazzling array of adornments and implements used by Asante royals and officials during the 18th century to the present day—providing a deeper understanding of the history, traditions, and visual arts of the Asante people, one of the thriving cultures of West Africa.

Twelve days after the onset of the American Civil War in April of 1861, Frederic Edwin Church, the most successful American landscape painter of his day, debuted his latest “Great Picture”—a painting titled The North. Despite favorable reviews, the painting failed to find a buyer. Faced with this unexpected setback, Church added a broken mast to the foreground and changed the work’s title to The Icebergs. He then shipped the painting to London, where it was finally sold to an English railroad magnate and subsequently disappeared from view for 116 years.

This book tells the fascinating story of The Icebergs and provides a detailed look at the cycle of fame, neglect, and resuscitation of both this masterwork and Church’s career. In 1979, The Icebergs sold at auction for $2.5 million, at the time the highest amount ever paid for an American painting. The sale coincided with an upswing in the popularity and acclaim accorded to American landscape painting, catalyzing the market for American art and contributing to a revival in the prestige of Church and the Hudson River School. Drawing on extensive interviews with many of the people involved with the painting’s rediscovery, sale, and eventual donation to the Dallas Museum of Art, the author considers the way marketing has defined The Icebergs.

In recent years, the Dallas Museum of Art has expanded its collection of South Asian art from a small number of Indian temple sculptures to nearly 500 works, including Indian Hindu and Buddhist sculptures, Himalayan Buddhist bronze sculptures and ritual objects, artwork from Southeast Asia, and decorative arts from India’s Mughal period. Artworks in the collection have origins from the former Ottoman empire to Java, and architectural pieces suggest the grandeur of buildings in the Indian tradition.

This volume details the cultural and artistic significance of more than 140 featured works, which range from Tibetan thangkas and Indian miniature paintings to stone sculptures and bronzes. Relating these works to one another through interconnecting narratives and cross-references, scholars and curators provide a broad cultural history of the region.

This book showcases 110 objects from the Dallas Museum of Art’s world-renowned African collection. In contrast to Western “art for art’s sake,” tradition-based African art served as an agent of religion, social stability, or social control. Chosen both for their visual appeal and their compelling histories and cultural significance, the works of art are presented under the themes of leadership and status; the cycle of life; decorative arts; and influences (imported and exported). Also included are many fascinating photographs that show the context in which these objects were originally used.