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Dugourc, Jean Démosthène  

French, 18th – 19th century, male.

Born 1749, in Versailles; died 1825, in Paris.

Painter (including gouache), watercolourist, sculptor, draughtsman (wash), engraver, decorative artist. Mythological subjects, allegorical subjects, historical portraits, hunting scenes, interiors with figures, gardens. Stage costumes and sets, furniture, designs for fabrics, frontispieces.

Dugourc's father, who was in the service of the Duke of Orléans, had a considerable fortune. Dugourc was permitted to attend the lessons taken by the Duke of Chartres (the future Philippe-Égalité), and at the age 15 left for Rome, attached to the embassy of the Count of Cani. From his infancy, he had shown an aptitude for drawing, perspective and architecture. However, the death of his mother, followed shortly after by the loss of his father's fortune, changed his life. From being an amateur, Dugourc became a professional artist, and executed paintings, sculptures and engravings. In a work published in ...

Article

Rococo  

Richard John and Ludwig Tavernier

A decorative style of the early to mid-18th century, primarily influencing the ornamental arts in Europe, especially in France, southern Germany and Austria. The character of its formal idiom is marked by asymmetry and naturalism, displaying in particular a fascination with shell-like and watery forms. Further information on the Rococo can be found in this dictionary within the survey articles on the relevant countries.

Richard John

The nature and limits of the Rococo have been the subject of controversy for over a century, and the debate shows little sign of resolution. As recently as 1966, entries in two major reference works, the Penguin Dictionary of Architecture and the Enciclopedia universale dell’arte (EWA), were in complete contradiction, one altogether denying its status as a style, the other claiming that it ‘is not a mere ornamental style, but a style capable of suffusing all spheres of art’. The term Rococo seems to have been first used in the closing years of the 18th century, although it was not acknowledged by the ...

Article

Turquerie  

Monique Riccardi-Cubitt

French term used to describe artefacts made in Turkey, or in France by Turkish craftsmen, and by derivation the influence on French design of elements from the Byzantine Empire, the Saljuq Islamic period and the Ottoman Empire. Specific motifs, borrowed from the original Turkish carpets, included arabesques or stylized flowers and vegetal scrolls and decorative animal forms—also included within the generic term ‘grotesques’—from the Renaissance onwards. From the Middle Ages inventories and accounts record objects façon de Turquie imported from the East through the Crusades or the Silk route. In the accounts (1316) of Geoffroi de Fleuri, treasurer to King Philippe V of France, ‘11 cloths of Turkey’ were noted, and in 1471 the inventory of the château of Angers records a wooden spoon and a cushion ‘à la façon de Turquie’. In the 16th century Turkish textiles were highly prized, and Turkish craftsmen were employed in Paris to embroider cloth for ladies’ dresses: in ...