National gallery of art in Washington presents an exhibition
"America gathers French painting of the eighteenth century".
This exhibition has two main objectives: to present the best, most unusual and the most popular French works of the eighteenth century from American collections across the country, and try to provide the public the museums are less known and more distant, but, nevertheless, have unique exhibits.
In 1815 Joseph Bonaparte (eldest brother of Napoleon) arrives in the United States of America. He brought with him a collection of French art of the XVIII century, which further exposes the Pennsylvania Academy of the fine arts. It was then, for the first time, Americans are beginning to realize the quality of French painting of this period. Following a surge of interest in decorative art of the XVIII century takes place 100 years later, when Henry Clay Frick buys 4 panels of Fragonard's "Progress of love" and exposes them to new York.
For decades, the French art of the eighteenth century fluctuated between a preference for attractive decorative paintings of Rococo artists such as Francois Boucher and Jean Honore Fragonard, and admiration sober Neoclassicism, which is associated with Jacques Louis David and his students.
On exhibit "America collects French painting of the eighteenth century" submitted to the sixty-eight paintings, and only two of them belong to the Washington national gallery of art. The rest brought from the collections of various museums, both popular and obscure, from all over the United States of America, from Pittsburgh and Indianapolis to Birmingham and Phoenix.
On the official website
The national gallery of artin Washington and in the website france-amerique.com.