Luigi Valadier (1726-1785) was an extraordinarily inventive Roman metalsmith, talented draughtsman, and maker of both table decorations and objects in gilt bronze, marble, and hard stone. His exquisite table centrepieces--produced for popes, royalty, and aristocrats, in Rome, as well as in France, England, Spain and Portugal--were considered the height of luxury in the eighteenth-century, and his fame spread far and wide. This new volume highlights fifty works produced by the Valadier workshop with comparative objects, designs and transcripts.

Lavishly illustrated, this volume is the first complete monograph on Luigi Valadier and the only comprehensive publication on Valadier in English. Shedding new light on the provenance and dating of some work, the volume further identifies the exact roles performed inside the workshop by the celebrated dynasty of craftsmen that included Luigi's French-born father Andrea and his son Giuseppe, as well as detailing the Valadier family's collaborations with other workshops and artists. Luigi Valadier provides an indispensable resource for future scholarship and is a must-have for collectors, dealers, and scholars.

Author: Alvar González-Palacios
Binding Type: Hardcover
Publisher: Giles
Published: 11/06/2018
Pages: 552
Weight: 7.2lbs
Size: 12.30h x 9.30w x 1.80d
ISBN: 9781911282129

About the Author
Alvar González-Palacios is an internationally recognized art historian. In 1997 he was awarded the Legion of Honour. He has authored many books on Italian and French decorative arts, including catalogues for the Louvre, the Prado, the Quirinal, and the Vatican Museums. He taught art history at the University of Bologna and has lectured at numerous American museums, among them, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, the Getty Museum, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, as well as in England, France, Spain, and Italy. His many publication include The French Empire Style: 70 Plates in Full Colour(1970); Lo Scultore Filippo Tagliolini E La Porcellana Di Napoli: Con Un Catalogo Delle Opere; La cultura dell'ignoranza (I Testimoni dell'arte) (1983); The Age of Louis XV (1984); l'Oro di Valadier: Un genio nella Roma del Settecento (1997); Furniture and Ornaments at the Court of Rome 1560-1795 (2004); and Nostalgia e invenzione: Arredi e arti decorative a Roma e a Napoli nel Settecento (2010).