Page 9 - Revolution Republique Empire Restauration

Preface

I often hear the simplification or, perhaps, pure misconception, that this gallery solely specializes in Italian
baroque masters, primarily religious by nature, rather dark, quite often also bloodthirsty in subject matter!
We are perceived as having filled museum galleries round the world, in fact no less than 106 such institu-
tions, with works, admirable in quality, yet, perhaps, less adapted to current tastes for the private dining
room! This reputation has been achieved despite numerous forays, and indeed catalogues, into alternative terrains
such as Italian Primitives, the cinquecento, settecento, British, and more recently Spanish sculpture, and so on.
However, it seems quite evident that the one area we are not associated with is French painting. Little could be
further from the truth as a cursory examination of our past catalogues will show. Thus it is partly for this reason
that we are producing this small catalogue dedicated to works executed between the French Revolution and the
end of the Restoration period of Louis XVIII, an historic period of change encompassing a transformation in style
from the neoclassical to the romantic.To further underline our past and continuing commitment to French art we
dedicate a few pages following this preface to illustrations of just a small selection of notable French paintings han-
dled by this gallery and placed by the gallery with both private clients and public institutions.The selection is, per-
force, abbreviated and limited to works falling within the historic period which is the scope of this publication.

I would like here to express my thanks for advice and assistance, or indeed contributions, toTalabardon & Gautier,
and more particularly to Bertrand Gautier, Giacomo Algranti, Enrico Colle, Alain Chevalier, Gisela Gramaccini,
Sidonie Lemeux-Fraitot, Guy Stair Sainty, and Anne Van de Sandt. We again owe a debt for photography to
Prudence Cuming Associates, and to David Chesterman for conservation, while framing has been undertaken by
Gino Franchi and John Davis.

As always I record my thanks to Andrea Gates for cataloguing, translation, and supervision.Without Andrea I fear
no catalogue would ever reach the printer! Over the last six years I have accumulated an enormous debt to Andrea
who has re-invigorated the gallery setting a new high academic standard for our publications, most notably those
that have appeared in the last eighteen months. As a small token of my esteem I am announcing that this gallery,
which in previous guises started life in Berlin in 1922 as Galerie Matthiesen under my late father, and then from
1936 – 1963 as Matthiesen Ltd., and latterly, since 1978, in Mason’sYard as Matthiesen Fine Art Ltd., will, before
the appearance of the next catalogue have undergone a further evolution and be named Matthiesen & Gates. It
is indeed a fortuitous coincidence, or just maybe a prescient act of fate, that our established logo MG adapts so
appropriately to the new circumstances.

PATRICK MATTHIESEN

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