OR VIRTUOSE À LA COUR DE FRANCE. PIERRE GOUTHIÈRE (1732-1813)

Le musée des Arts décoratifs présente les œuvres de celui qui fut l’un des plus célèbres artisans du XVIIIe siècle, Pierre Gouthière, doreur et ciseleur des rois Louis XV et Louis XVI.

104 objets d’art et 85 dessins et estampes, replacent l’œuvre de Gouthière au cœur de la création ornementale du dernier tiers du XVIIIe siècle. Cette exposition est le fruit d’une collaboration du musée avec la Frick Collection de New York.

Exposition organisée par la Frick Collection, New York, et adaptée à Paris par le musée des Arts décoratifs

Avec le soutien des Friends of the Musées des Arts Décoratifs

http://www.lesartsdecoratifs.fr/francais/musees/musee-des-arts-decoratifs/actualites/expositions-en-cours/arts-decoratifs/or-virtuose-a-la-cour-de-france-pierre-gouthiere-1732-1813/

Pierre Gouthière became a master ciseleur-doreur (chaser-gilder) in 1758, during the reign of Louis XV. Little is known of his early years, but by 1765 he was gilding a number of pieces in both bronze and silver for François-Thomas Germain, the sculpteur-orfèvre du roi (sculptor-goldsmith to the king). In 1767 Gouthière began to work for the Menus-Plaisirs du Roi, an institution responsible for providing the king’s personal effects as well as organizing his entertainment, thus starting a long career at the service of the French court. His works were so admired by Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette that in addition to commissioning objects directly, they also acquired masterpieces at the auction organized in December 1782 after the death of the Duke of Aumont, an avid admirer of Gouthière’s production. The exhibition will bring the finest works, which are now in private and public collections in Europe and the United States, to New York for the first time. Besides Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, Gouthière’s clientele included the Count of Artois, the Countess Du Barry, the Duke of Duras, the Duchess of Mazarin, Princess Kinsky, the Marquis of Marigny, and the King of Poland. He collaborated with some of the period’s most highly regarded sculptors, including Louis-Simon Boizot. Unfortunately, Gouthière’s wasteful expenditures and a series of financial setbacks—including the huge uncollectable sum owed to him by Madame Du Barry and the death in the early 1780s of two of his most important clients, the Duke of Aumont and Duchess of Mazarin—forced him to declare bankruptcy in 1787. A remarkable blue marble and gilt-bronze table commissioned for the latter—now a well-known highlight of the Frick’s decorative arts holdings—inspired this exhibition and fresh study of Gouthière’s oeuvre…..

https://enfilade18thc.com/2016/08/01/exhibition-pierre-gouthiere-virtuoso-gilder-at-court/