What’s the story behind America’s romance with 19th-century French art?
The National Gallery of Art in Washington has curated 68 paintings for a dazzling exhibition to answer that question. “America Collects Eighteenth-Century French Painting” tells the compelling story of how collectors, curators, dealers, and directors of the early 19th century cultivated American taste for French art. Whether it is the decorative canvases of rococo artists such as François Boucher and Jean Honoré Fragonard or the sober neoclassicism of Jacques Louis David, the exhibition brings together the best and most unusual examples of French art of that era held by American museums.
“America Collects Eighteenth-Century French Painting” opens on May 21 and will be on view through August 20. To learn more, visit the National Gallery of Art.
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