Michael Savage
posted 17 January 2006

The exuberance of French rococo art of the eighteenth century appeals to a very different taste from seventeenth century French art - austere classicism of Poussinism, or dramatic baroque Rubensism. Most public collections have strength in one or the other - London's National Gallery is stronger in the seventeenth century, Washington's in the eighteenth, for example. And earlier French art of any quality is scarcely to be seen anywhere. But here is a good representation of masterpieces from the sixteenth through to the early nineteenth centuries drawn entirely from the stock of just one art dealer. But then, Wildenstein is no ordinary art dealer.

The Wildensteins started buying decades ago, and have never been in much of a hurry to sell anything. Some of the paintings here were bought in the 1940s and 1950s, and have been unseen and unpublished since. The proceeds from what they have sold have gone to fund a lavish lifestyle for the billionaire family, and more worthily to sponsor a number of excellent catalogues of French artists, including Chardin, Fragonard and Monet - all of whom have featured prominently in the Wildenstein stock. No one knows quite the extent of their holdings, only part of which is revealed in this exhibition. The first couple of galleries have some good things, but at the end of the corridor on the ground floor is a treasure trove of early French art that literally caused my to gasp for breath, for here were wonderful rarities by Jean Clouet and Corneille de Lyon (an unpublished portrait of the highest quality), the sort of thing virtually never seen even in the greatest public collections.

For me the highlight was the wonderful Fragonard, 'The Charlatan'. Fragonard is a mixed artist, sometimes sappy and sentimental, and sometimes downright slapdash. I don't particularly like any of the Fragonards in the UK (most of which are in London's Wallace Collection) but paintings like 'The Reader' in Washington's National Gallery, or the 'Girl with Dog' in Munich are among the greatest of the eighteenth century. This isn't quite on that level, but it's still one of his best and most endearing images.

This is not only a chance to see some rare and excellent things. It's also a great place for people watching - the curious, cowed before the conspicuous wealth, the conspicuously wealthy shopping for something to go with the wallpaper, the obsequious salesman flattering the philistine rich, and the scholarly connoisseurs assessing the wares. It demands a Daumier to capture it all.

In these surroundings, it's hard to avoid imagining which you'd like to take home, and I can just see the little Fragonard beside a fireplace in a small sitting room, above a small Louis XVI writing table by Riesner or Carlin. Museums like the Wildenstein and the Frick afford opportunity for self-indulgent enjoyment of art free from the insistent bustle of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, or the Museum of Modern Art. The unhurried, unforced atmosphere of calm and contemplation is pure joy.

Till 27 January 2006.