Charmed Couple Art and Life of

"A splendid and long overdue appreciation of a peerless painter of fine interiors, with a vivid picture of American expatriate life in France."

-Louis Auchincloss This stylish book re-creates the charmed life of two American expatriates in France at the turn of the 20th century-the noted artist Walter Gay and his wife, Matilda, whose glittering social circle included John Singer Sargent, Edith Wharton, Henry James, and many other artists and aristocrats. Narrated by witty excerpts from Matilda Gay's recently discovered journal, and richly illustrated with Walter Gay's remarkable, sought-after paintings of the rooms in which they and their friends lived, in Paris, Fontainebleau, Venice, and elsewhere, A Charmed Couple offers an intimate glimpse of a long-gone social milieu whose hold on the popular imagination continues to this day. WILLIAM RIEDER is a curator in the Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Author of numerous articles, most on European furniture, in such journals as Architectural Digest, Connoisseur, and Antiques, he lives in New York City. 128 illustrations, 55 in full color, 81/2 x 101/2"

Rieder, a curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, provides an intriguing and lively glimpse into the social world of two wealthy, ex-patriate Americans, Matilda Gay and her artist husband, Walter, who lived in France before, during, and after World War I. The narrative is based on Matilda's extensive, recently available diaries in which she recorded a lifetime of observation that revealed her connoisseurship and social interactions. Here she recounted everyday life, from hiring and firing servants to social extravaganzas, lifelong friendship with Edith Wharton, intimate conversations with Henry James, the acquisition and activities at her beloved Chateau Breau, and France during World War I. Fully illustrated with Walter's signature paintings of well-furnished interiors that were popular with the aristocracy and wealthy of his day, the book will transport the reader back in time to a lavish, privileged, well-mannered, and leisured way of life that was shared by a rarefied few. Rieder has succeeded in rescuing a unique social and artistic history that is well researched and a joy to read. Recommended for most public, social history, art school, and museum collections. Ellen Bates, New York
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