Poussin, Lorrain, Watteau, Fragonard…
French Masterpieces of the 17^th and 18^th Centuries from German Collections
17 February – 14 May 2006
Press conference: 02/16/2005, 11 a.m.

An exhibition of the Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany, Bonn, Bavarian State Painting Collections, Munich, Stiftung Haus der Kunst, Munich, and Réunion des Musées Nationaux, Paris.

This ambitious exhibition is built on the rich collections of French art that German museums have held and steadily strengthened for over two centuries. From the baroque exuberance of the followers of Caravaggio to the severity of Neoclassicism around 1800, it presents the multifaceted diversity of French painting, examining at the same time the history of the key German collections themselves, and reflecting on the impact of French art in this country.

The concept for the exhibition, which is shown at three separate venues, was developed by Curator Pierre Rosenberg, former President-Director of the Louvre, the leading expert in the field, as the result of his systematic review and cataloguing of German museums’ holdings of French art over the past several years.

The selection of 150 paintings and oil sketches traces the major developments of French art in the 17th and 18th century. Famous masterpieces by Watteau, Chardin, Lorrain, Poussin, Fragonard and Boucher are presented next to less well-known works by artists such as de la Hyre, Valentin, Bourdon and Dughet. It is chronologically ordered and arranged according to subject matter such as landscape, portrait, still life and history painting.

The exhibition was made possible by the generous support and commitment of many of Germany’s museums. Their willingness to part with their masterpieces has enabled the organisers of this exhibition to bring to he public a rich picture of the cultural flowering of France in the 17th and 18th century, and to show how its echoes resonated in the courts and cultural centres of Germany.

The exhibition is accompanied by an extensive catalogue in German and French as well as by a largely complete inventory of French 17th and 18th century paintings in German museum collections (1.675 works).