{"title":"Books by Xavier F. Salomon","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9781913875152","title":"Paolo Veneziano’s Coronation of the Virgin","description":"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe eighth volume in the Frick Diptych series focuses on a stunning fourteenth-century painting, pairing an essay by Frick deputy director Xavier F. Salomon with a fascinating contribution from contemporary composer Nico Muhly.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAccording to Muhly, \u003ci\u003eThe Coronation of the Virgin \u003c\/i\u003eis “a panel of pure theater and music”. Painted in 1358 by the Venetian artist Paolo Veneziano (ca. 1295-1362), the apocryphal story of the moment when the Virgin is crowned Queen of Heaven is depicted here in one of the artist’s most thrilling and important works. Paolo  presents the Virgin and Christ in sumptuous garments and surrounded by a choir of angels playing portable organs, lutes, trumpets, tambourines, and other instruments. The angels symbolize the harmony of the universe; their instruments are the authentic components of a medieval orchestra, accurately depicted and correctly held and played. The decorative sparkle of the surface — with its brilliant, expensive colours, patterned textiles, and lavish gold leaf — reflects the Venetians’ love of luxury, a taste that enriches much of 14th- and 15th-century art in Venice.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56309355807093,"sku":"9781913875152","price":19.95,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781913875152_21d48c4a-094a-4fdb-ad53-9252a636b19c.jpg?v=1786030788"},{"product_id":"9781913875732","title":"Boucher’s Four Seasons","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThis new volume in the Frick Diptych series features an illuminating essay by Frick deputy director and Peter JaySharp Chief Curator Xavier F. Salomon paired with a newly-commissioned cycle of paintings by Flora Yukhnovich.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFrançois Boucher (1703-1770) made the four paintings known as the Four Seasons in 1755 for Madame De Pompadour, King Louis XV’s long-term official mistress. Their original location is unknown, but their peculiar shape suggests that they were used as overdoors, no doubt in one of Pompadour’s many properties in France.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn place of the labors that traditionally illustrate the theme of the four seasons, Boucher depicts delightful amorous encounters in joyous colors. In \u003ci\u003eSpring\u003c\/i\u003e, a youth, set in an enchanting pastoral setting, adorns his lover’s hair with flowers. A group of voluptuous bathing nudes represents \u003ci\u003eSummer\u003c\/i\u003e. In \u003ci\u003eAutumn\u003c\/i\u003e, a young man offers a bunch of grapes to his fashionable beloved. Perhaps the most beguiling of all is \u003ci\u003eWinter\u003c\/i\u003e, which reflects the eighteenth-century European fascination with Russia. A Tartar in pseudo-Russian dress pushes the heroine on an elaborate sleigh. This combination of luxury and seduction—all treated in a fanciful, even humorous manner—is typical of Boucher.\u003c\/p\u003eAccompanying the Boucher paintings is Flora Yuknovich's contribution, an extraordinary cycle of paintings inspired by Boucher’s Four Seasons, to be displayed at the Frick, in a space on the first floor, occupied between 1935 and 2020 by the Boucher Room.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56369355227509,"sku":"9781913875732","price":24.95,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}]},{"product_id":"the-frick-collection-the-historic-interiors","title":"The Frick Collection: The Historic Interiors","description":"\u003cb\u003eAfter a multiyear renovation, The Frick Collection returns to its lauded Gilded Age mansion on New York’s Fifth Avenue. Spectacular photography by Miguel Flores-Vianna and insightful text by Xavier F. Salomon, the museum’s chief curator, unite to celebrate one of the preeminent fine and decorative art collections in the world.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRichly illustrated with newly commissioned photography, this publication chronicles the history of the iconic 1914 residence of industrialist Henry Clay Frick, while offering a room-by-room tour that showcases each space’s evolution from a private residence to part of The Frick Collection. The personal and cultural significance of the mansion’s interiors is explored, from the stately drawing rooms and intimate boudoirs to the galleries that house masterpieces by Bellini, Fragonard, Goya, Ingres, Manet, Rembrandt, Titian, and Vermeer.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe mansion at One East Seventieth Street stands as a testament to Frick’s refined taste, immense wealth, and unparalleled art collection. The reader will experience a captivating exploration of the mansion’s creation, from Frick’s initial vision of a “comfortable, well-arranged house, simple, in good taste, and not ostentatious” to the multifaceted collaboration between the strong-willed patron and his team of architects, interior decorators (including Sir Charles Carrick Allom and Elsie de Wolfe), and art dealers. This book is a reintroduction to the marvels of the Frick’s collections and an introduction to the gloriously revived interiors of an internationally lauded jewel of a museum.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57481636807029,"sku":"9780847874361","price":50.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780847874361.jpg?v=1786089919"},{"product_id":"luigi-valadier-in-nicaragua","title":"Luigi Valadier in Nicaragua","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAn intriguing story of the search for, and discovery of, a wonderful and rare work of art thought lost for centuries.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn 1767 and 1768, a number of objects made by the renowned eighteenth-century Roman goldsmith Luigi Valadier (1726–1785) were sent from Rome to a “principal church in Mexico,” but until recently they had been thought lost or destroyed. Among these was a monumental silver-gilt monstrance (a vessel in which the consecrated Host is shown), “destined for a principal church of Mexico that is in the Indies of Spain.” During the course of The Frick Collection's 2018 exhibition \u003ci\u003eLuigi Valadier: Splendor in Eighteenth-Century Rome\u003c\/i\u003e curated by Xavier F. Salomon and Alvar González-Palacios, Salomon kept asking himself where this principal church in Mexico might be and whether the lost silver-gilt monstrance might be found. The odds of recovering it and other items were slim because objects made of gold, silver, and precious stones were so often melted for cash or recycling. In fact, most of Valadier’s works of this type do not survive; we know about them only from invoices, descriptions, and inventories.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAfter an extensive search, Salomon located the lost monstrance in the Cathedral of León in Nicaragua. Finally able to travel to León in 2022, Salomon was able to verify that in addition to the monstrance, approximately twenty-five other \"lost\" objects—chandeliers, reliquaries, a chalice, and candlesticks, many of them bearing Valadier’s seal—are works by Valadier, many of them used in the daily liturgy of the cathedral. Thus, for more than two hundred and fifty years this sacred treasure—the largest surviving Valadier collection in the world—has been known only to worshippers in León, their origin a mystery, until now.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57492244922741,"sku":"9781913875770","price":45.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781913875770.jpg?v=1791212969"},{"product_id":"porcelain-garden","title":"Porcelain Garden","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eCelebrate The Frick Collection with a profusion of beautiful flower sculptures.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn conjunction with its reopening, following its 2020–25 renovation, The Frick Collection commissioned arrangements of porcelain flowers from Ukrainian sculptor Vladimir Kanevsky that evoke the fresh flowers displayed throughout the museum when it first opened to the public, in 1935. Kanevsky’s lifelike porcelain flowers have been exhibited in museums around the world, including the State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and Hillwood Estate, Museum \u0026amp; Gardens in Washington, DC. With an essay by Xavier F. Salomon and exquisite photography, this book documenting Kanevsky’s twenty extraordinary creations is a lasting souvenir of a unique installation at the Frick.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57492394017141,"sku":"9781917273169","price":24.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}]}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-xavier-f-salomon.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}