Nineteenth-Century Art, From Romanticism to Art Nouveau: The Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore

Wappingers Falls: Antique Collectors' Club, 2000. Softcover. VG. Dark grey pictorial wraps. 160 pp. 150 color plates. From back cover: The 19th-century holdings of the Walters Art Gallery are unique amongst museum collections of art from this period. Not only were William T. Walters (1819-94) and his son Henry (1848-1931) unique in purchasing extensively the art from their own `Gilded Age', but they also acquired works from many key artistic periods. The result is a collection of 19th-century art which undoubtedly reflects the the interests of its founders and gives viewers an opportunity to trace the development of 19th-century art within a historical context. This new title presents the highlights of this amazing collection. These include a series of paintings by the foremost masters of the Romantic era, J. A. D. Ingres and Eugene Delacroix, as well as landscapes by painters associated with the Barbizon school. Likewise, the `transportation' series of watercolours that William Walters bought from Honore Daumier in 1864 is generally recognised as the high point of nineteenth-century Realism. However, it is in the field of academic art, which dominated French art during the Second Empire (1852-70) that The Walters excels. The conflicts between the academic artists - especially Jean-Leon Gerome and Alexandre Cabanels - and the impressionists is demonstrated by The Walters collection. The work of Edouard Manet is presented in close proximity to that of his teacher, Thomas Couture, and the landscapes of Claude Monet and Alfred Sisley are juxtaposed with a highly idealised, poetic vision of ancient Egypt by Charles Gleyre, with whom they trained.