The Arts of Living: Europe 1600-1800

Description

The Arts of Living explores the range, depth and beauty of the V&A's European collections from 1600-1815, the period that laid the foundations for the world we know today. At the heart of the book is in investigation into the objects of everyday life, and the ways that art and design both reflected and changed how people lived. The works of art and manufactured goods with which men and women surrounded themselves defined their identity and role in society - from monarchs to merchants, craftsmen to housewives. Singular masterpieces by painters and sculptors including Boucher and Bernini, along with the work of such leading manufacturers as the Gobelins, Boulle and Meissen, illustrate a great diversity of subjects, from Louis XIV and Catherine the Great to male adornment and fashionable silks, from Jewish traditions and the Dutch interior to the East India trade and Africans in European art.

Elizabeth Miller is Senior Curator of prints at the V&A. and a member of the Europe Galleries concept team. She has written extensively on prints in the Italian Renaissance home and the Petrucci Pavement and is author of 16th-Century Italian Ornament Prints (V&A, 1999). Hilary Young is Senior Curator of ceramics at the V&A. and a member of the Europe Galleries concept team. His publications include English Porcelain, 1745 - 95 (V&A, 1999), Elegant Eating (V&A, 2002) and Masterpieces of World Ceramics (V&A, 2008).