The National Gallery's collection encompasses the neoclassicism of Jacques-Louis David as well as the naturalism of the Barbizon painters. The works of Jean-August-Dominique Ingres, such as the Gallery's famous portrait of Madame Moitessier, are precursors to the classical style that dominated later in the century. Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot's verdant landscapes, Honore Daumier's political satires, and Jean-Francois Millet's realism are also included in this richly illustrated volume.

The National Gallery's collection of nineteenth-century sculpture is dominated by thirty-seven works by Auguste Rodin, among them The Kiss, and Honore Daumier's celebrated portrait busts. These works, as well as sculptures by Antoine-Louis Barye, Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, Paul Gauguin, and Theodore Gericault, are examined in unprecedented depth, shedding new light on many issues of scholarship. An essay about Rodin and Mrs. John W. Simpson, the artist's most important American patron, and a selection of letters between the Simpsons and Rodin chronicle this artist-patron relationship....