Lustrous Images from the Enligtenment. The Medals of the Dassiers of Geneva. [English and french Edition]

The first monograph to be dedicated to the most renowned family of medalists of the 18th century.
The Dassiers (Jean Dassier,1676-1763 and his two sons, Jacques-Antoine, 1715-1759 and Antoine, 1718-1780) were the only medalists of their time to have had the honour of being mentioned in the Encyclopédie by Diderot and D'Alembert, in which one can read that they "have rendered their names famous through their same talent: their fine medals after nature and several other works emerging from their burin prove that they are worthy of being counted amongst the most celebrated engravers".
The book examines the works that established the reputation of the Dassiers, starting with an elegant silver watch case by Jean Dassier for the Fabrique de Genève (Paris, Louvre), three series of small medals or tokens: The Metamorphoses by Ovid (1717; 60 pieces) and Illustrious men of the century of Louis XIV (1723-1724; 73 pieces) and, finally, The Church reformers (1725; 24 pieces). This last series was dedicated to William Wake, Archbishop of Canterbury, who offered the Dassiers his support in obtaining royal authorization to strike two major series, The Kings of England (1731-1732) and Famous Britons (1731-1738). Borrowing from the fame of his father throughout Europe, Jacques-Antoine, a former pupil of the École de Rome, threw himself into the creation of a new series dedicated to worthies in England, including savants, writers and politicians. At the peak of his career, he had the privilege of producing a portrait of Montesquieu, a work that is a milestone in the history of art (1753). This European reputation ensured that he was invited as engraver to the court of Russia, where he produced his last masterpiece, The founding of the University of Moscow (1754), decorated with an extremely bold portrait of the Empress Elizabeth. The death of Jacques-Antoine in 1759 and of his father four years later marked the end of a glorious artistic and commercial enterprise after 60 years of activity.
Key Sales Information - This publication offers a summary and updating of the catalogue raisonné, The Dassiers of Geneva: 18th-century European medalists (Lausanne and Geneva, 2002-2005), the scientific point of reference for the subject. The new bilingual publication aims to offer direct access for a wider public of enthusiasts, historians and researchers.
- Sixty plates will make a full appreciation possible of the many facets of the Dassiers' art.
The publication also contains a corpus of the 359 medals known to have been produced by the studio.
- The author guides the reader through the high points of the Dassiers' production, and places them within a historical and artistic perspective.
- For the first time, this book does justice to the Dassiers' entire oeuvre, presenting it to the public of international collectors.
Author William Eisler has been a scientific collaborator at the Musée monétaire cantonal of Lausanne since 1997. A PhD in the history of art from Pennsylvania State University (1983), he was a professor at the University of Sydney and organizer of the exhibition for the Australian bicentenary in 1988. He has obtained prestigious scholarships and research grants, including the Ailsa Mellon Bruce Senior Fellowship at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (1988-1989). He is the author of The Furthest Shore: Images of Terra Australis from the Middle Ages to Captain Cook, Cambridge University Press, 1995, and The Dassiers of Geneva: 18th-century European medallists (2 vol.), Lausanne and Genève, 2002-2005.