The Bourgeoisie

The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, is proud to present The Bourgeoisie: Society and Style in European Art, the most recent in a series of inter-departmental exhibitions of European Art to be presented in the Della and Fred OBE Worms Gallery.

The exhibition will explore the type of art that appealed visually to the European bourgeoisie from the 16th to the 19th century, also exploring the characteristics of these ascending members of society who were neither aristocrats nor commoners.  How did they look?  What characterized their natural surroundings?  What were their children like?  What pets did they keep and how did they relate to them?  What were their family values?  And no less important or fascinating: what were their small foibles and vices?

Presenting works from the mid-16th century onwards, the exhibition will explore how the taste, status, financial standing, and temperament of this influential social group propelled its choice of art over the course of four centuries, while facilitating the building of some of Europe’s greatest collections of art, several of which eventually reached the collections of the Israel Museum.

Encompassing paintings, prints, furniture, and photography, the exhibition will include works by leading artists of their day, including Honoré Daumier, Edward Northcote, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Carl Spitzweg, Lesser Ury, Marten de Vos, and Edouard Vuillard.   Furniture and paintings in the Biedermeier style from the Museum’s Ortenau Collection will provide a fascinating glimpse into the bourgeois lifestyle of a prominent German-Jewish family in 19th-century Munich.

Honoré-Victorin Daumier
Actualités No. 190:
Ladies from the half-world, but not wearing half skirts
Lithograph, Le Charivari, May 11, 1855  
Bequest of W.G. Allen Russel, Boston
Photo © The Israel Museum, Jerusalem by Eli Posner

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
Skating. Professional Beauty
From Le Rire: No. 62
Color lithograph, 
11 January 1896
Gift of Mr. Cohen-Tervaert, Amsterdam, in memory of his son
Photo © The Israel Museum, Jerusalem by Eli Posner

 

Adele Laisne
After Aimee de Lemud, French, 1816/7-1887
Three Bourgeois Women and a Child
From Victor Hugo: Notre Dame de Paris
Wood engraving, 1844
Photo © The Israel Museum, Jerusalem by Eli Posner