Customer Reviews

French Eighteenth-Century Porcelain at the Wadsworth Atheneum: J. Pierpont Morgan Collection

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J Pierpoint Morgan (1937-1913) was involved in a mind boggling array of of business and miscellaneous activities during his lifetime. How he found time to do his collecting beggars belief. Morgan was one of the most voracious collectors in history; at the time of his death in 1913 he had accumulated around 20,000 objects. At that time the collection was valued at 50 million dollars.

This catalogue presents and describes 200 items of 18th century French porcelain located in the Wadsworth Atheneum, the majority of which were originally in Morgan's collection. The first 53 items are from the Saint-Cloud, Chantilly and Villeroy-Mennecy factories, the other 147 are from Vincennes and Sevres.

To be seen in this collection are vases, tea wares, figures, flowerpots, table wares and so forth. Have no doubt that the quality of the porcelain is invariably of the highest order. The fabulously wealthy Morgan obviously had a discerning and cultured eye and money was of no object. After all, it was he that coined the phrase "if you have to ask the price, you can't afford it".

This is a luxuriously presented book written by authorities in this area of decorative art. The photographs are often generously sized and excellently reproduced. My only complaint is that, for an expensively priced product, there are far too many black and white images. Otherwise I highly recommend this beautiful book to porcelain enthusiasts.