Jayne Wrightsman, the late collector and champion of European decorative arts, bequeathed her entire collection of ancien régime manuscripts and bookbindings to the Morgan Library and Museum in New York. Among the 149 printed books which passed into the Morgan’s collection in 2019 are works once owned by Madame Adélaïde (daughter of King Louis XV) and Queen Marie-Antoinette, and others boasting illustrations by the likes of François Boucher and Jean-Baptiste Oudry. This display at the Morgan (25 June–26 September) considers the significance of bookbinding as an art form in the 18th-century French court, and celebrates Wrightsman’s exacting eye as a collector. Find out more from the Morgan’s website.
Preview below | View Apollo’s Art Diary here
La princesse de Crète (1688), André Danican Philidor. Morgan Library & Museum, New York
Almanach royal, année M. DCC. LXV (1765), bound for Pierre-Louis-Paul Randon de Boisset by Nicolas-Denis Derome Morgan Library & Museum, New York
Le psautier de David (1725), bound for Queen Marie Leszczyńska by Jacques-Antoine Derome. Morgan Library & Museum, New York
Prieres du matin et du soir (1748), written and bound for Louis-Joseph de Bourbon, prince de Condé, by Louis Pierre Vallain. Morgan Library & Museum, New York