rococo exotic at the frick

:frick collection

Run, don't walk, to view this beautiful exhibit at The Frick. (Extended through September 9). And if you're not able to see these treasures up close, the 52-page catalog is a valuable addition to any design or decorative arts library.



A bit more info...
In mid-eighteenth-century France, mounted Asian porcelains were the height of fashion. More Far Eastern porcelains were set into elaborate metal mounts in the period between 1740 and 1760 than at any other point in European history, and Paris was the center of this phenomenon. Commissioned by the Parisian marchands merciers, or luxury merchants, artisans produced exquisite gilt bronze confections to adorn imported porcelains and often modified the porcelains themselves in order to adapt them to the décor of French interiors.

This exhibition explores the design and reception of such rococo luxury objects by focusing on a pair of mounted eighteenth-century Chinese porcelains in The Frick Collection. The deep blue vases were cut down and the mounts added between 1745 and 1749. Ornamented with elaborate gilt-bronze imitations of natural forms such as shells, coral, pearls, and bulrushes, these costly items fuse a contemporary fascination with natural exotica, largely imported from the East, with the concurrent fashion for Far Eastern porcelains. Drawing on prints, books, and other objects, the exhibition explores the convergence of the natural and the humanly wrought in the production of such elite wares and probes the fascination with the exotic that lies at the heart of the Rococo.