Systematic Catalogs

Edgar Degas Sculpture

Suzanne Glover Lindsay, Daphne S. Barbour, and Shelley G. Sturman

Executed in wax and dressed in a ballerina’s tutu, Little Dancer Aged Fourteen caused a sensation when it was exhibited in 1881. It is the only sculpture Edgar Degas ever showed publicly, though more than one hundred—including dancers, horses, and bathers—were found in his studio after he died; all were dusty, and some had fallen apart. This groundbreaking volume documents the Gallery’s superb collection of sculpture by Degas, linking art and science with insights from an art historian, conservators, and scientists.

"Perhaps the best and most complete book on Degas's sculpture ever done." —International Sculpture Center

"The National Gallery catalogue compiles a broad new range of physical evidence and cutting-edge technical analysis of Degas's sculptural production, providing a turning point in our appreciation of this elusive artist." —ARTnews

408 pages | 221 color images, 209 black and white images | 9.75 x 11.25 inches

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French Paintings of the Fifteenth through the Eighteenth Century

Philip Conisbee et al.

Georges de La Tour's haunting depiction of a repentant Mary Magdalen gazing into a mirror by candlelight; Jean Siméon Chardin's perfectly balanced image of a young boy making a house of cards; Jean Honoré Fragonard's monumental suite of landscapes showing aristocrats at play in picturesque gardens--these are among the familiar and beloved masterpieces in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, which houses one of the most important collections of French old master paintings outside France. This lavishly illustrated book, written by leading scholars and the result of years of research and technical analysis, catalogs nearly one hundred paintings, from works by François Clouet in the sixteenth century to paintings by Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun in the eighteenth.

French art before the revolution is characterized by an astonishing variety of styles and themes and by a consistently high quality of production, the result of an efficient training system developed by the traditional guilds and the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture, founded in 1648 by King Louis XIV. The National Gallery of Art’s collection reflects this quality and diversity, featuring excellent examples by all the leading painters: ideal landscapes by Claude Lorrain and biblical subjects by Nicolas Poussin, two artists who spent most of their careers in Rome; deeply moving religious works by La Tour, Sébastien Bourdon, and Simon Vouet; portraits of the grandest format (Philippe de Champaigne's Omer Talon) and the most intimate (Nicolas de Largillierre's Elizabeth Throckmorton); and familiar scenes of daily life by the Le Nain brothers in the seventeenth century and Chardin in the eighteenth. The Gallery's collection is especially notable for its holdings of eighteenth-century painting, from Jean Antoine Watteau to Hubert Robert, and including marvelous suites of paintings by François Boucher and Fragonard. All these works are explored in detailed, readable entries that will appeal as much to the general art lover as to the specialist.

552 pages | 118 color images | 9.625 x 11.25 inches

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Renaissance Medals
Volume 1: Italy

John Graham Pollard

The National Gallery of Art houses the single most important collection of portrait medals in the United States. This two-volume catalog examines in depth these holdings, comprising more than eight hundred medals. Providing detailed technical information—including the alloy composition of each medal—drawn from careful research, observation, and analysis, Renaissance Medals breaks new ground in the scholarly literature. Volume One focuses on the Gallery’s superb collection of Italian Renaissance medals, unique in their quality, number, and diversity. Volume Two documents the Gallery’s collection of sixteenth century German medals, French baroque medals, and smaller, though no less significant, groups of Netherlandish and English medals.

1,120 pages | 66 color images | 9.625 x 11.25 inches

Renaissance Medals
Volume 2: France, Germany, The Netherlands, and England

John Graham Pollard with the assistance of Eleonora Luciano and Maria Pollard

The National Gallery of Art houses the single most important collection of portrait medals in the United States. This two-volume catalog examines in depth these holdings, comprising more than eight hundred medals. Providing detailed technical information—including the alloy composition of each medal—drawn from careful research, observation, and analysis, Renaissance Medals breaks new ground in the scholarly literature. Volume One focuses on the Gallery’s superb collection of Italian Renaissance medals, unique in their quality, number, and diversity. Volume Two documents the Gallery’s collection of sixteenth century German medals, French baroque medals, and smaller, though no less significant, groups of Netherlandish and English medals.

1,120 pages | 66 color image | 9.625 x 11.25 inches

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Flemish Paintings of the Seventeenth Century

Arthur K. Wheelock Jr.

The National Gallery of Art’s collection of seventeenth-century Flemish paintings is relatively small, numbering less than sixty, but exceptional in quality. At the core of the collection are twelve paintings by Sir Peter Paul Rubens and his school and seventeen paintings by Sir Anthony van Dyck, including some of their finest masterpieces. Also represented are excellent works by other important Flemish masters.

290 pages | 56 color images | 9.625 x 11.25 inches

Italian Paintings of the Fifteenth Century

Miklós Boskovits and David Alan Brown

Many of the Gallery’s greatest masterpieces—such as Leonardo’s Ginevra de’ Benci, Fra Angelico and Fra Filippo Lippi's The Adoration of the Magi, and works by Bellini, Sassetta, Perugino, Filippino Lippi, Botticelli, Carpaccio, Ghirlandaio, Domenico Veneziano, and Piero di Cosimo—are featured.

778 pages | 153 color images | 9.625 x 11.25 inches