1.
Saint-Quentin, Aisne
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Saint-Quentin is a commune in the Aisne department in Hauts-de-France in northern France. It has been identified as the Augusta Veromanduorum of antiquity and it is named after Saint Quentin, who is said to have been martyred here in the 3rd century. Saint-Quentin is a sub-prefecture of Aisne, although Saint-Quentin is by far the largest city in Aisne, the capital is the third-largest city, Laon. The mayor of Saint-Quentin is Xavier Bertrand, a member of the right-wing UMP Party, the city was founded by the Romans, in the Augustean period, to replace the oppidum of Vermand as the capital of Viromandui. It received the name of Augusta Viromanduorum, Augusta of the Viromandui, the site is that of a ford across the River Somme. During the late Roman period, it is possible that the capital was transferred back to Vermand. From the 9th century, Saint-Quentin was the capital of Vermandois County, from the 10th century, the counts of Vermandois were very powerful. The city grew rapidly, the bourgeois organized themselves and obtained, in the half of the 11th century. At the beginning of the 13th century, Saint-Quentin entered the royal domain, at that time, it was a thriving city, based on its wool textile industry. It was also a centre of commerce boosted by its position on the border of the kingdom of France and it also benefited from its location in the heart of a rich agricultural region. From the 14th century, Saint-Quentin suffered from this strategic position, in the 15th century, the city was disputed between the king of France and the dukes of Burgundy. Ravaged by the plague on several occasions, its population decreased, while its economy was in crisis, its fair was increasingly irrelevant, the declining textile industry turned to the production of flax canvas. Meanwhile, the city faced major expenses to maintain its fortifications, between the end of the 15th century and the mid-17th century, this strategic position was the cause of frequent misfortune. In 1557, a siege by the Spanish army ended with the looting of the city, given back to France in 1559, it underwent intense fortification work, the medieval wall was protected by many new advanced fortifications, redesigned several times. Two districts were razed to make way for them, in the mid-17th century, the city escaped the sieges, but suffered the horrors of wars ravaging the Picardy region, accompanied by the plague and famine. In the second half of the 17th century, the conquests of Louis XIV took St Quentin away from the border, at the end of the 16th century, its textile production specialized in fine flax canvas. This brought prosperity, particularly in the 18th century, when these textiles were exported across Europe, during the First French Empire, difficulties in the export market brought an economic decline. At the request of the municipality, Napoleon authorized the razing of the fortifications, in 1814-1815, Saint-Quentin was occupied by the Russian army, but without any damage
2.
Kingdom of France
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The Kingdom of France was a medieval and early modern monarchy in Western Europe. It was one of the most powerful states in Europe and a great power since the Late Middle Ages and it was also an early colonial power, with possessions around the world. France originated as West Francia, the half of the Carolingian Empire. A branch of the Carolingian dynasty continued to rule until 987, the territory remained known as Francia and its ruler as rex Francorum well into the High Middle Ages. The first king calling himself Roi de France was Philip II, France continued to be ruled by the Capetians and their cadet lines—the Valois and Bourbon—until the monarchy was overthrown in 1792 during the French Revolution. France in the Middle Ages was a de-centralised, feudal monarchy, in Brittany and Catalonia the authority of the French king was barely felt. Lorraine and Provence were states of the Holy Roman Empire and not yet a part of France, during the Late Middle Ages, the Kings of England laid claim to the French throne, resulting in a series of conflicts known as the Hundred Years War. Subsequently, France sought to extend its influence into Italy, but was defeated by Spain in the ensuing Italian Wars, religiously France became divided between the Catholic majority and a Protestant minority, the Huguenots, which led to a series of civil wars, the Wars of Religion. France laid claim to large stretches of North America, known collectively as New France, Wars with Great Britain led to the loss of much of this territory by 1763. French intervention in the American Revolutionary War helped secure the independence of the new United States of America, the Kingdom of France adopted a written constitution in 1791, but the Kingdom was abolished a year later and replaced with the First French Republic. The monarchy was restored by the great powers in 1814. During the later years of the elderly Charlemagnes rule, the Vikings made advances along the northern and western perimeters of the Kingdom of the Franks, after Charlemagnes death in 814 his heirs were incapable of maintaining political unity and the empire began to crumble. The Treaty of Verdun of 843 divided the Carolingian Empire into three parts, with Charles the Bald ruling over West Francia, the nucleus of what would develop into the kingdom of France. Viking advances were allowed to increase, and their dreaded longboats were sailing up the Loire and Seine rivers and other waterways, wreaking havoc. During the reign of Charles the Simple, Normans under Rollo from Norway, were settled in an area on either side of the River Seine, downstream from Paris, that was to become Normandy. With its offshoots, the houses of Valois and Bourbon, it was to rule France for more than 800 years. Henry II inherited the Duchy of Normandy and the County of Anjou, and married Frances newly divorced ex-queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine, after the French victory at the Battle of Bouvines in 1214, the English monarchs maintained power only in southwestern Duchy of Guyenne. The death of Charles IV of France in 1328 without male heirs ended the main Capetian line, under Salic law the crown could not pass through a woman, so the throne passed to Philip VI, son of Charles of Valois
3.
Pastel
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A pastel is an art medium in the form of a stick, consisting of pure powdered pigment and a binder. The pigments used in pastels are the same as used to produce all colored art media, including oil paints. The color effect of pastels is closer to the natural dry pigments than that of any other process, Pastels have been used by artists since the Renaissance, and gained considerable popularity in the 18th century, when a number of notable artists made pastel their primary medium. An artwork made using pastels is called a pastel, Pastel used as a verb means to produce an artwork with pastels, as an adjective it means pale in color. Pastel sticks or crayons consist of powdered pigment combined with a binder. The exact composition and characteristics of an individual pastel stick depends on the type of pastel and it also varies by individual manufacturer. Dry pastels have historically used binders such as gum arabic and gum tragacanth, methyl cellulose was introduced as a binder in the twentieth century. Often a chalk or gypsum component is present and they are available in varying degrees of hardness, the softer varieties being wrapped in paper. Some pastel brands use pumice in the binder to abrade the paper, dry pastel media can be subdivided as follows, Soft pastels, This is the most widely used form of pastel. The sticks have a portion of pigment and less binder. The drawing can be readily smudged and blended, but it results in a proportion of dust. White chalk may be used as a filler in producing pale, Pan Pastels, These are formulated with a minimum of binder in flat compacts and applied with special Soft micropore sponge tools. A 21st-century invention, Pan Pastels can be used for the painting or in combination with soft. Hard pastels, These have a portion of binder and less pigment. These can be used with other pastels for drawing outlines and adding accents, hard pastels are traditionally used to create the preliminary sketching out of a composition. However, the colors are brilliant and are available in a restricted range in contrast to soft pastels. Pastel pencils, These are pencils with a pastel lead and they are useful for adding fine details. In addition, pastels using a different approach to manufacture have been developed, Oil pastels, These have a soft, buttery consistency and they are dense and fill the grain of paper and are slightly more difficult to blend than soft pastels, but do not require a fixative
4.
Rococo
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Rococo artists and architects used a more jocular, florid, and graceful approach to the Baroque. Their style was ornate and used light colours, asymmetrical designs, curves, unlike the political Baroque, the Rococo had playful and witty themes. By the end of the 18th century, Rococo was largely replaced by the Neoclassic style. In 1835 the Dictionary of the French Academy stated that the word Rococo usually covers the kind of ornament, style and design associated with Louis XVs reign and it includes therefore, all types of art from around the middle of the 18th century in France. The word is seen as a combination of the French rocaille and coquilles, the term may also be a combination of the Italian word barocco and the French rocaille and may describe the refined and fanciful style that became fashionable in parts of Europe in the 18th century. The Rococo love of shell-like curves and focus on decorative arts led some critics to say that the style was frivolous or merely modish, when the term was first used in English in about 1836, it was a colloquialism meaning old-fashioned. While there is some debate about the historical significance of the style to art in general. Italian architects of the late Baroque/early Rococo were wooed to Catholic Germany, Bohemia and Austria by local princes, an exotic but in some ways more formal type of Rococo appeared in France where Louis XIVs succession brought a change in the court artists and general artistic fashion. By the end of the long reign, rich Baroque designs were giving way to lighter elements with more curves. These elements are obvious in the designs of Nicolas Pineau. During the Régence, court life moved away from Versailles and this change became well established, first in the royal palace. The delicacy and playfulness of Rococo designs is seen as perfectly in tune with the excesses of Louis XVs reign. The 1730s represented the height of Rococo development in France, the style had spread beyond architecture and furniture to painting and sculpture, exemplified by the works of Antoine Watteau and François Boucher. The Rococo style was spread by French artists and engraved publications, william Hogarth helped develop a theoretical foundation for Rococo beauty. Though not intentionally referencing the movement, he argued in his Analysis of Beauty that the lines and S-curves prominent in Rococo were the basis for grace. The development of Rococo in Great Britain is considered to have connected with the revival of interest in Gothic architecture early in the 18th century. The beginning of the end for Rococo came in the early 1760s as figures like Voltaire and Jacques-François Blondel began to voice their criticism of the superficiality, Blondel decried the ridiculous jumble of shells, dragons, reeds, palm-trees and plants in contemporary interiors. By 1785, Rococo had passed out of fashion in France, replaced by the order, in Germany, late 18th century Rococo was ridiculed as Zopf und Perücke, and this phase is sometimes referred to as Zopfstil
5.
Portrait
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A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expression is predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person, for this reason, in photography a portrait is generally not a snapshot, but a composed image of a person in a still position. A portrait often shows a person looking directly at the painter or photographer, nonetheless, many subjects, such as Akhenaten and some other Egyptian pharaohs, can be recognised by their distinctive features. The 28 surviving rather small statues of Gudea, ruler of Lagash in Sumeria between c.2144 -2124 BC, show a consistent appearance with some individuality. Some of the earliest surviving painted portraits of people who were not rulers are the Greco-Roman funeral portraits that survived in the dry climate of Egypts Fayum district. These are almost the only paintings from the world that have survived, apart from frescos, though many sculptures. Although the appearance of the figures differs considerably, they are considerably idealized, the art of the portrait flourished in Ancient Greek and especially Roman sculpture, where sitters demanded individualized and realistic portraits, even unflattering ones. During the 4th century, the portrait began to retreat in favor of a symbol of what that person looked like. In the Europe of the Early Middle Ages representations of individuals are mostly generalized, true portraits of the outward appearance of individuals re-emerged in the late Middle Ages, in tomb monuments, donor portraits, miniatures in illuminated manuscripts and then panel paintings. Moche culture of Peru was one of the few ancient civilizations which produced portraits and these works accurately represent anatomical features in great detail. The individuals portrayed would have been recognizable without the need for other symbols or a reference to their names. The individuals portrayed were members of the elite, priests, warriors. They were represented during several stages of their lives, the faces of gods were also depicted. To date, no portraits of women have been found, there is particular emphasis on the representation of the details of headdresses, hairstyles, body adornment and face painting. One of the portraits in the Western world is Leonardo da Vincis painting titled Mona Lisa. What has been claimed as the worlds oldest known portrait was found in 2006 in the Vilhonneur grotto near Angoulême and is thought to be 27,000 years old. Profile view, full view, and three-quarter view, are three common designations for portraits, each referring to a particular orientation of the head of the individual depicted. Such terms would tend to have greater applicability to two-dimensional artwork such as photography, in the case of three-dimensional artwork, the viewer can usually alter their orientation to the artwork by moving around it
6.
Voltaire
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Voltaire was a versatile writer, producing works in almost every literary form, including plays, poems, novels, essays, and historical and scientific works. He wrote more than 21,000 letters and over two books and pamphlets. He was an advocate of civil liberties, despite the risk this placed him in under the strict censorship laws of the time. As a satirical polemicist, he made use of his works to criticize intolerance, religious dogma. Some speculation surrounds Voltaires date of birth, because he claimed he was born on 20 February 1694 as the son of a nobleman. Two of his older brothers—Armand-François and Robert—died in infancy and his brother, Armand. Nicknamed Zozo by his family, Voltaire was baptized on 22 November 1694, with François de Castagnère, abbé de Châteauneuf, and Marie Daumard, the wife of his mothers cousin, standing as godparents. He was educated by the Jesuits at the Collège Louis-le-Grand, where he was taught Latin, theology, and rhetoric, later in life he became fluent in Italian, Spanish, and English. By the time he left school, Voltaire had decided he wanted to be a writer, against the wishes of his father, Voltaire, pretending to work in Paris as an assistant to a notary, spent much of his time writing poetry. When his father out, he sent Voltaire to study law. Nevertheless, he continued to write, producing essays and historical studies, Voltaires wit made him popular among some of the aristocratic families with whom he mixed. In 1713, his father obtained a job for him as a secretary to the new French ambassador in the Netherlands, the marquis de Châteauneuf, at The Hague, Voltaire fell in love with a French Protestant refugee named Catherine Olympe Dunoyer. Their scandalous affair was discovered by de Châteauneuf and Voltaire was forced to return to France by the end of the year, Most of Voltaires early life revolved around Paris. From early on, Voltaire had trouble with the authorities for critiques of the government and these activities were to result in two imprisonments and a temporary exile to England. One satirical verse, in which Voltaire accused the Régent of incest with his own daughter, the Comédie-Française had agreed in January 1717 to stage his debut play, Œdipe, and it opened in mid-November 1718, seven months after his release. Its immediate critical and financial success established his reputation, both the Régent and King George I of Great Britain presented Voltaire with medals as a mark of their appreciation. He mainly argued for tolerance and freedom of thought. He campaigned to eradicate priestly and aristo-monarchical authority, and supported a constitutional monarchy that protects peoples rights, the author adopted the name Voltaire in 1718, following his incarceration at the Bastille
7.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
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Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a Francophone Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer of the 18th century. His political philosophy influenced the Enlightenment in France and across Europe, as well as aspects of the French Revolution, Rousseaus novel Emile, or On Education is a treatise on the education of the whole person for citizenship. His sentimental novel Julie, or the New Heloise was of importance to the development of pre-romanticism and romanticism in fiction and his Discourse on Inequality and The Social Contract are cornerstones in modern political and social thought. During the period of the French Revolution, Rousseau was the most popular of the philosophes among members of the Jacobin Club and he was interred as a national hero in the Panthéon in Paris, in 1794,16 years after his death. Rousseau was born in Geneva, which was at the time a city-state, since 1536, Geneva had been a Huguenot republic and the seat of Calvinism. Rousseau was proud that his family, of the order, had voting rights in the city. Throughout his life, he signed his books Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Geneva, in theory, was governed democratically by its male voting citizens, the citizens were a minority of the population when compared to the immigrants, referred to as inhabitants, whose descendants were called natives and continued to lack suffrage. There was much debate within Geneva, extending down to the tradespeople. Much discussion was over the idea of the sovereignty of the people, in 1707, a democratic reformer named Pierre Fatio protested this situation, saying a sovereign that never performs an act of sovereignty is an imaginary being. He was shot by order of the Little Council, Jean-Jacques Rousseaus father, Isaac, was not in the city at this time, but Jean-Jacquess grandfather supported Fatio and was penalized for it. The trade of watchmaking had become a tradition by the time of Rousseaus father. Isaac followed his grandfather, father and brothers into the business, Isaac, notwithstanding his artisan status, was well educated and a lover of music. A Genevan watchmaker, Rousseau wrote, is a man who can be introduced anywhere, in 1699, Isaac ran into political difficulty by entering a quarrel with visiting English officers, who in response drew their swords and threatened him. After local officials stepped in, it was Isaac who was punished, Rousseaus mother, Suzanne Bernard Rousseau, was from an upper-class family. She was raised by her uncle Samuel Bernard, a Calvinist preacher and he cared for Suzanne after her father Jacques died in his early thirties. In 1695, Suzanne had to answer charges that she had attended a street theater disguised as a peasant woman so she could gaze upon M. Vincent Sarrasin, after a hearing, she was ordered by the Genevan Consistory to never interact with him again. She married Rousseaus father at the age of 31, isaacs sister had married Suzannes brother eight years earlier, after she had become pregnant and they had been chastised by the Consistory
8.
Louis XV of France
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Louis XV, known as Louis the Beloved, was a monarch of the House of Bourbon who ruled as King of France and Navarre from 1 September 1715 until his death. He succeeded his great-grandfather Louis XIV at the age of five, Cardinal Fleury was his chief minister from 1726 until the Cardinals death in 1743, at which time the young king took sole control of the kingdom. During his reign, Louis returned the Austrian Netherlands, territory won at the Battle of Fontenoy of 1745, Louis also ceded New France in North America to Spain and Great Britain at the conclusion of the Seven Years War in 1763. He incorporated the territories of Lorraine and Corsica into the kingdom of France and he was succeeded by his grandson Louis XVI in 1774. French culture and influence were at their height in the first half of the eighteenth century, however, many scholars believe that Louis XVs decisions damaged the power of France, weakened the treasury, discredited the absolute monarchy, and made it more vulnerable to distrust and destruction. Evidence for this view is provided by the French Revolution, which broke out 15 years after his death, norman Davies characterized Louis XVs reign as one of debilitating stagnation, characterized by lost wars, endless clashes between the Court and Parliament, and religious feuds. A few scholars defend Louis, arguing that his negative reputation was based on propaganda meant to justify the French Revolution. Jerome Blum described him as a perpetual adolescent called to do a mans job, Louis XV was born in the Palace of Versailles on 15 February 1710 during the reign of Louis XIV. His grandfather, Louis Le Grand Dauphin, had three sons with his wife Marie Anne Victoire of Bavaria, Louis, Duke of Burgundy, Philippe, Duke of Anjou, and Charles, Duke of Berry. Louis XV was the son of the Duke of Burgundy and his wife Marie Adélaïde of Savoy, the eldest daughter of Victor Amadeus II, Duke of Savoy. At birth, Louis XV received a title for younger sons of the French royal family. In April 1711, Louis Le Grand Dauphin suddenly died, making Louis XVs father, the Duke of Burgundy, at that time, Burgundy had two living sons, Louis, Duke of Brittany and his youngest son, the future Louis XV. A year later, Marie Adélaïde, Duchess of Burgundy, contracted smallpox and her husband, said to be heartbroken by her death, died the same week, also having contracted smallpox. Within a week of his death, it was clear that the two children had also been infected. The elder son was treated by bloodletting in an unsuccessful effort to save him. Fearing that the Dauphin would die, the Court had both the Dauphin and the Duke of Anjou baptised, the Dauphin died the same day,8 March 1712. His younger brother, the Duke of Anjou, was treated by his governess, Madame de Ventadour. The two year old Dauphin survived the smallpox, on 1 September 1715, Louis XIV died of gangrene, having reigned for 72 years
9.
Madame de Pompadour
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She took charge of the king’s schedule and was a valued aide and advisor, despite her frail health and many political enemies. She secured titles of nobility for herself and her relatives, and built a network of clients and she was particularly careful not to alienate the Queen, Marie Leszczyńska. On February 8,1756, the Marquise de Pompadour was named as the lady in waiting to the queen, a position considered the most prestigious at the court. She was a patron of architecture and decorative arts, such as porcelain. She was a patron of the philosophes of the Enlightenment, including Voltaire, Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, otherwise known as Reinette to her friends, was born on 29 December 1721 in Paris to François Poisson and his wife Madeleine de La Motte. It is suspected that her father was either the rich financier Pâris de Montmartel or the tax collector Le Normant de Tournehem. Her younger brother was Abel-François Poisson de Vandières, who became the Marquis de Marigny. Poisson was intelligent, beautiful and refined and she spent her early childhood at the Ursuline convent in Poissy where she received a good education. At the age of 9 in 1730 she returned to Paris under the care of her mother Madame Poisson, the fortune teller told her then that she would one day be the mistress of King Louis XV. From then on Madame Poisson thought, her daughter was destined for greatness and she must provide the means and opportunities to help her achieve it. So her mother took charge of her education at home by hiring tutors who taught her to recite entire plays by heart, play the clavichord, dance, sing, paint. She became an actress and singer, and also attended Pariss Club de lEntresol. On 15 December 1740, Tournehem made his nephew his sole heir, disinheriting all his nephews and nieces. These included the estate at Étiolles, a gift from her guardian. With her husband, she had two children, a boy who died a year after his birth in 1741 and Alexandrine-Jeanne, born 10 August 1744 and died June 1754. Contemporary opinion supported by artwork from the considered the young Mme dÉtiolles to be beautiful, with her small mouth. Her young husband was soon infatuated with her and she was celebrated in the world of Paris. She founded her own salon, at Étiolles, and was joined by many philosophes, as Jeanne Antoinette became known in society, King Louis XV came to hear of her
10.
Salon (Paris)
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The Salon, or rarely Paris Salon, beginning in 1667 was the official art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Between 1748 and 1890 it was arguably the greatest annual or biennial art event in the Western world, at the 1761 Salon, thirty-three painters, nine sculptors, and eleven engravers contributed. From 1881 onward, it has been managed by the Société des Artistes Français, in 1667, the royally sanctioned French institution of art patronage, the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture, held its first semi-public art exhibit at the Salon Carré. The Salons original focus was the display of the work of recent graduates of the École des Beaux-Arts, exhibition at the Salon de Paris was essential for any artist to achieve success in France for at least the next 200 years. Exhibition in the Salon marked a sign of royal favor, in 1725, the Salon was held in the Palace of the Louvre, when it became known as Salon or Salon de Paris. In 1737, the exhibitions, held from 18 August 1737 to 5 September 1737 at the Grand Salon of the Louvre and they were held, at first, annually, and then biennially, in odd-numbered years. They would start on the feast day of St. Louis, once made regular and public, the Salons status was never seriously in doubt. In 1748 a jury of awarded artists was introduced, from this time forward, the influence of the Salon was undisputed. The Salon exhibited paintings floor-to-ceiling and on every inch of space. The jostling of artwork became the subject of other paintings. Printed catalogues of the Salons are primary documents for art historians, critical descriptions of the exhibitions published in the gazettes mark the beginning of the modern occupation of art critic. The French revolution opened the exhibition to foreign artists, the vernissage of opening night was a grand social occasion, and a crush that gave subject matter to newspaper caricaturists like Honoré Daumier. Charles Baudelaire, Denis Diderot and others wrote reviews of the Salons, the 1848 revolution liberalized the Salon. The amount of refused works was greatly reduced, the increasingly conservative and academic juries were not receptive to the Impressionist painters, whose works were usually rejected, or poorly placed if accepted. The Salon opposed the Impressionists shift away from traditional painting styles, in 1863 the Salon jury turned away an unusually high number of the submitted paintings. An uproar resulted, particularly from regular exhibitors who had been rejected, in order to prove that the Salons were democratic, Napoleon III instituted the Salon des Refusés, containing a selection of the works that the Salon had rejected that year. It opened on 17 May 1863, marking the birth of the avant-garde, the Impressionists held their own independent exhibitions in 1874,1876,1877,1879,1880,1881,1882 and 1886. In 1881, the government withdrew official sponsorship from the annual Salon, in December 1890, the leader of the Société des Artistes Français, William-Adolphe Bouguereau, propagated the idea that Salon should be an exhibition of young, not-yet awarded, artists
11.
Joseph Ducreux
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He was made a baron and premier peintre de la reine, and drew the last portrait ever made of Louis XVI before the king’s execution. His less formal portraits reflect his fascination with physiognomy and show an interest in expanding the range of facial expressions beyond those of official portraiture, born in Nancy, France, Ducreux may have trained with his father, who was also a painter. When Ducreux went to Paris in 1760, he trained as the student of the pastelist Maurice Quentin de La Tour. Jean-Baptiste Greuze was an important influence on Ducreuxs oil technique, in 1769, Ducreux was sent to Vienna in order to paint a miniature of Marie Antoinette before she left the city in 1770 and married Louis XVI of France. Ducreux was made a baron and premier peintre de la reine in rewards for his services, Ducreux was given this appointment by Marie-Antoinette even though he was not a member of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture, which had been founded in 1648. The academy was strictly hierarchical and the posts of first painter, ordinary painter, at the outbreak of the French Revolution, Ducreux traveled to London. There he drew the last portrait made of Louis XVI before the kings execution. Jacques-Louis David became one of Ducreuxs associates when the returned to Paris in 1793. David helped Ducreux continue an official career, Ducreuxs residence became an informal salon for artists and musicians, who commissioned portraits from him. One of these musicians was his friend Étienne Méhul, who is said to have based the character of one of his operas on Ducreux. His eldest son Jules was a painter and infantry captain who died in the Battle of Jemappes and his eldest daughter, Rose-Adélaïde Ducreux, also became a painter. These works may have been copies after De La Tour, from 1760 onward, Ducreux kept a list of his works, but throughout his lifetime, he rarely signed his paintings. Thus, many of his works remain erroneously attributed to other artists, other portraits by Ducreux include those done of Pierre Choderlos de Laclos and Maria Theresa of Austria, as well as those mentioned above of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. Ducreux also made several well-known self-portraits in the 1780s and 1790s, in another, Portrait de lartiste sous les traits dun moqueur, the artist guffaws and points at the viewer. As evidenced by these self-portraits, Ducreux attempted to free from the constraints of traditional portraiture. Le Discret, for example, is the portrait of a man asking for silence and his expression is timorous, his finger is pressed against his mouth in alarm as he silently demands discretion or prudence. Ducreuxs self-portrait Portrait de lartiste sous les traits dun moqueur has become subject to internet popularity as part of an internet meme
12.
Marquise de Pompadour
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She took charge of the king’s schedule and was a valued aide and advisor, despite her frail health and many political enemies. She secured titles of nobility for herself and her relatives, and built a network of clients and she was particularly careful not to alienate the Queen, Marie Leszczyńska. On February 8,1756, the Marquise de Pompadour was named as the lady in waiting to the queen, a position considered the most prestigious at the court. She was a patron of architecture and decorative arts, such as porcelain. She was a patron of the philosophes of the Enlightenment, including Voltaire, Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, otherwise known as Reinette to her friends, was born on 29 December 1721 in Paris to François Poisson and his wife Madeleine de La Motte. It is suspected that her father was either the rich financier Pâris de Montmartel or the tax collector Le Normant de Tournehem. Her younger brother was Abel-François Poisson de Vandières, who became the Marquis de Marigny. Poisson was intelligent, beautiful and refined and she spent her early childhood at the Ursuline convent in Poissy where she received a good education. At the age of 9 in 1730 she returned to Paris under the care of her mother Madame Poisson, the fortune teller told her then that she would one day be the mistress of King Louis XV. From then on Madame Poisson thought, her daughter was destined for greatness and she must provide the means and opportunities to help her achieve it. So her mother took charge of her education at home by hiring tutors who taught her to recite entire plays by heart, play the clavichord, dance, sing, paint. She became an actress and singer, and also attended Pariss Club de lEntresol. On 15 December 1740, Tournehem made his nephew his sole heir, disinheriting all his nephews and nieces. These included the estate at Étiolles, a gift from her guardian. With her husband, she had two children, a boy who died a year after his birth in 1741 and Alexandrine-Jeanne, born 10 August 1744 and died June 1754. Contemporary opinion supported by artwork from the considered the young Mme dÉtiolles to be beautiful, with her small mouth. Her young husband was soon infatuated with her and she was celebrated in the world of Paris. She founded her own salon, at Étiolles, and was joined by many philosophes, as Jeanne Antoinette became known in society, King Louis XV came to hear of her
13.
Jean le Rond d'Alembert
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Jean-Baptiste le Rond dAlembert was a French mathematician, mechanician, physicist, philosopher, and music theorist. Until 1759 he was also co-editor with Denis Diderot of the Encyclopédie, DAlemberts formula for obtaining solutions to the wave equation is named after him. The wave equation is referred to as dAlemberts equation. Born in Paris, dAlembert was the son of the writer Claudine Guérin de Tencin and the chevalier Louis-Camus Destouches. Destouches was abroad at the time of dAlemberts birth, days after birth his mother left him on the steps of the Saint-Jean-le-Rond de Paris church. According to custom, he was named after the saint of the church. DAlembert was placed in an orphanage for foundling children, but his father found him and placed him with the wife of a glazier, Madame Rousseau, Destouches secretly paid for the education of Jean le Rond, but did not want his paternity officially recognized. DAlembert first attended a private school, the chevalier Destouches left dAlembert an annuity of 1200 livres on his death in 1726. Under the influence of the Destouches family, at the age of twelve entered the Jansenist Collège des Quatre-Nations. Here he studied philosophy, law, and the arts, graduating as baccalauréat en arts in 1735, in his later life, DAlembert scorned the Cartesian principles he had been taught by the Jansenists, physical promotion, innate ideas and the vortices. The Jansenists steered DAlembert toward a career, attempting to deter him from pursuits such as poetry. Theology was, however, rather unsubstantial fodder for dAlembert and he entered law school for two years, and was nominated avocat in 1738. He was also interested in medicine and mathematics, Jean was first registered under the name Daremberg, but later changed it to dAlembert. The name dAlembert was proposed by Johann Heinrich Lambert for a moon of Venus. In July 1739 he made his first contribution to the field of mathematics, at the time Lanalyse démontrée was a standard work, which dAlembert himself had used to study the foundations of mathematics. DAlembert was also a Latin scholar of note and worked in the latter part of his life on a superb translation of Tacitus. In 1740, he submitted his second scientific work from the field of fluid mechanics Mémoire sur la réfraction des corps solides, in this work dAlembert theoretically explained refraction. In 1741, after failed attempts, dAlembert was elected into the Académie des Sciences
14.
Henry Benedict Stuart
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Unlike his father, James Francis Edward Stuart, and brother, Charles Edward Stuart, Henry made no effort to seize the throne. After Charless death in January 1788 the Papacy did not recognise Henry as the ruler of England, Scotland, and Ireland. At the time of his death he was one of the longest serving Cardinals in the Churchs history, in his youth, Henrys father made him Duke of York, and it was by this title that he was best known. His father was James Francis Edward Stuart, known to his opponents as the Old Pretender and his mother was the Princess Maria Klementyna Sobieska, granddaughter of the Polish King and Lithuanian Grand-Duke, John III Sobieski. Henry went to France in 1745 to help his brother, Prince Charles Edward Stuart prepare the Jacobite rising of 1745, after its defeat, Henry Stuart returned to Italy. On 30 June 1747 Pope Benedict XIV conferred him with tonsure, on 27 August 1747 he was promoted to the four minor orders by the Pope. He received the subdiaconate on 18 August 1748 and diaconate on 25 August 1748 and he was ordained priest on 1 September 1748 and consecrated titular Archbishop of Corinth on 2 October 1758. He was advanced to the order of Cardinal Priest in 1748, in 1752 he transferred to the titulus of Ss. He was made Cardinal-Bishop of Frascati on 13 July 1761, and eventually succeeded to the See of Ostia and he lived and worked in Frascati for many years, descending each afternoon in his carriage to Rome, where his position as vice-chancellor entitled him to the Palazzo della Cancelleria. His revenues from the many ecclesiastical preferments he enjoyed were enormous and his income from abbeys and other pluralities in Flanders, Spain, Naples and France amounted to 40,000 Pounds in British money at the time. He also held sinecure benefices yielding revenues in Spanish America and he owned territory in Mexico, which contributed largely to his income. Henry was the last claimant to the British throne to touch for the Kings Evil, at the time of the French Revolution, he lost his French Royal benefices and sacrificed many other resources to assist Pope Pius VI. This, in addition to the seizure of his Frascati property by the French, the British Minister in Venice arranged for Henry to receive an annuity of £4,000 from King George III of Great Britain. Although the British government represented this as an act of charity, Henry, Henry returned to Frascati in 1803. In September of that year he became the Dean of the College of Cardinals and hence Cardinal Bishop of Ostia and Velletri and he died there on 13 July 1807, aged 82. Historians have drawn upon contemporary perceptions to explore the suggestion that Henry was homosexual and these accounts include the writings of Hester Lynch Thrale, and the diplomat and writer Giuseppe Gorani. Gorani admitted to having gathered evidence insufficient to confirm his suspicions either way, the historian Andrew Lang alluded to Jamess comment that his younger son would never marry although many marriages had been planned for him. The writer Gaetano Moroni provides the lengthiest account of Henrys close attachment with his majordomo Monsignor Giovanni Lercari and this closeness led to serious tensions between the cardinal and his father who in 1752 eventually tried to have Lercari dismissed from service and sent from Rome
15.
Charles Louis Auguste Fouquet, duc de Belle-Isle
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Charles Louis Auguste Fouquet, duc de Belle-Isle was a French general and statesman. Born in Villefranche-de-Rouergue, Belle-Isle was the grandson of Nicolas Fouquet and his family was in disgrace because of Fouquet’s brash ambition in the eyes of Louis XIV. Determined to blot out his family’s prior disgrace, he entered the army at an age and was made proprietary colonel of a dragoon regiment in 1708. He rose during the War of the Spanish Succession to the rank of brigadier, in the War of the Polish Succession he commanded a corps under the orders of Marshal Berwick, capturing Trier and Traben-Trarbach and taking part in the Siege of Philippsburg in 1734. When peace was made in 1736, Louis XV gave Belle-Isle the governments of three important fortresses, Metz, Toul, and Verdun offices that he would hold until his death. This was in recognition of both his military services and of his part in the negotiations for the cession of Lorraine. Belle-Isle’s military and political reputation was now at its height, and he was one of the principal advisers on military. The long tradition of Franco-Austrian rivalry had crystallized around Belle-Isle, who had emerged as the leader of the bloc of French policy makers towards the House of Austria. French aggression was in part made possible by the precedent set by the Frederick II of Prussia. His aggressive strategy towards Austria was predicated on the defeat of an impotent and disorganized Austria. Belle-Isle was named Maréchal de France in 1741 and received control of a large army, the truth of this story is open to question, for no one knew better than Belle-Isle the limitations imposed upon commanders by the military and political circumstances of the times. He was, according to one scholar, “the most important single influence on French policy in the year of 1741. ”However. Following his initial victories, Belle-Isle suffered regression and defeat and his aggressive policies had proved disastrous, however the daring French retreat from Prague would distinguish Belle-Isle’s military brilliance and bravery. But by never allowing himself to be cut off, he was able to reach the safety of Eger, after losing 1500 men. His subordinate, François de Chevert, and his 5000 men, the means by which this was obtained supposedly included Chevert threatening to burn down the city. He was forced to remain a year in England, in spite of the demands of Louis XV, during the French campaigns of 1746-47, Belle-Isle was in command of the Army at Piedmont on the Alpine frontier. His troops conquered Antibes and Nice, only to suffer a defeat at the Battle of Assietta. The disastrous battle would claim the life of Belle-Isle’s younger brother, the soldier and diplomatist, the Chevalier de Belle-Isle, following the defeat, French forces were weakened and demoralized
16.
Maurice de Saxe
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Maurice, Count of Saxony was a Franco-Saxon soldier in French service who became a Marshal and later also Marshal General of France. He is best known for his victory at the Battle of Fontenoy. Maurice was born at Goslar, an son of Augustus II the Strong, King of Poland and Elector of Saxony. He was the first of eight extramarital children whom August acknowledged, although as many as 354 are claimed by sources, including Wilhelmine of Bayreuth, in 1698, the Countess sent him to his father in Warsaw. August had been elected King of Poland in the previous year and this separation from his father made him independent and had an important effect on his future career. At the age of twelve, Maurice served in the army of Prince Eugene of Savoy, at the sieges of Tournai and Mons, a proposal at the end of the campaign to send him to a Jesuit college in Brussels was dropped due to the protests of his mother. Upon his return to the camp of the Allies at the beginning of 1710 and he next served under Peter the Great against the Swedes. In 1711, August formally recognized him and Maurice was granted the rank of Count and he then accompanied his father to Pomerania, and in 1712 he took part in the battle of Gadebusch. At the age of 17 in 1713 he commanded his own regiment, in manhood, Maurice bore a strong resemblance to his father, both physically and in character. His grasp was so powerful that he could bend a horseshoe with his hand, the next year, Johanna gave birth to a son, called August Adolf after his grandfather, the child only lived a few hours. Since Maurice had also given her more serious grounds of complaint against him, after serving in a campaign against the Ottoman Empire in 1717, he went to Paris to study mathematics, and in 1720 obtained a commission as maréchal de camp. In 1725, he entered negotiations for election as Duke of Courland, at the insistence of the Duchess Anna Ivanovna and he was chosen Duke in 1726, but declined marriage with the duchess. Lecouvreur was to die shortly afterwards, there is controversy as to whether or not she was poisoned by her rival, Maria Karolina Sobieska. At the outbreak of the War of the Polish Succession, Saxe served under Marshal the Duke of Berwick, saxes exploits were the sole redeeming feature in an unsuccessful campaign, and on 26 March 1743, his merits were rewarded by promotion to Marshal of France. He had been given only 50-60,000 men to defend against an army twice as large. From this time on, he one of the great generals of the age. During the battle, he was unable to sit on horseback due to edema, in recognition of his brilliant achievement, King Louis XV of France conferred on him the Château de Chambord for life, and in April 1746, he was naturalised as a French subject. Until the end of the war, he continued to command in the Netherlands, besides Fontenoy he added Rocoux and Lawfeldt or Val to the list of French victories
17.
Marie Fel
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Marie Fel was a French opera singer and a daughter of the organist Henri Fel. Marie Fel was born at Bordeaux and she made her debut at the Paris Opera in 1733 and sang regularly at the Concert Spirituel. In a career that lasted 35 years, she sang in all the operas of Rameau along with Pierre Jélyotte, created roles in those of Mondonville and she retired from the stage in 1758, but continued to perform in concert until 1769. She had a relationship with the painter Quentin de La Tour. The French actress and singer Sophie Arnould was one of her students, translated, with addenda, from French Wikipedia
18.
Bank of France
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The Bank of France known in French as the Banque de France, headquartered in Paris, is the central bank of France, it is linked to the European Central Bank. Founded in 1800, it helped resolve the crisis of 1848. Its main charge is to implement the interest rate policy of the European System of Central Banks. In 1800, financial power in France was in the hands of ten to fifteen banking houses whose founders, in most cases. These bankers, mostly Protestant, were involved in the agitations leading up to the French Revolution. When the revolutionary violence got out of hand, they orchestrated the rise of Napoleon, as a reward for their support, Napoleon, in 1800, gave the bankers a monopoly over French finance by giving them control of the new Bank of France. For the first fifteen years it was the issuer of bank notes in Paris, and this privilege was extended to other financially important towns. On 1 June 1998, a new institution was created, the European Central Bank, the body formed by the ECB, and the national central banks of all the member states of the European Union, constitute the European System of Central Banks. The ESCB is a framework of a single monetary policy for the euro. According to the Bank of Frances website, the sharing of responsibilities between the ECB and the NCBs is based upon significant decentralization of the conduct of the ESCBs single monetary policy,22 April 1806, a new law replaced the Central Committee with a Governor and two Deputy Governors. All three were appointed by the Emperor, decree dated 16 January 1808 set out the Basic Statutes, which were to govern the Banks operations until 1936. Decree on 6 March 1808 authorized the Bank to purchase the mansion of the Count of Toulouse in the rue de la Vrillière in Paris for its headquarters. This reform cleared the path for the European monetary union, economy of France Euro French franc Governor of the Bank de France Bouvier, Jean. The Banque de France and the State from 1850 to the Present Day, in Fausto Vicarelli, et al. eds. Central banks independence in historical perspective pp 73–104, crises et Apprentissage, La Banque de France en 1848, Entreprises et Histoire Issue 69, pp 27–37 Plessis, Alain. The history of banks in France, in Pohl, Manfred, and Sabine Freitag, eds. Handbook on the history of European banks pp, 185-296, online Official site of Bank of France Beginnings of Banque de France The directors of Bank of France between 1800 and 1815
19.
International Standard Book Number
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The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number, identifies periodical publications such as magazines, the ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 in the United Kingdom by David Whitaker and in 1968 in the US by Emery Koltay. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108, the United Kingdom continued to use the 9-digit SBN code until 1974. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978, an SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prefixing the digit 0. For example, the edition of Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns, published by Hodder in 1965, has SBN340013818 -340 indicating the publisher,01381 their serial number. This can be converted to ISBN 0-340-01381-8, the check digit does not need to be re-calculated, since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland European Article Number EAN-13s. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, a 13-digit ISBN can be separated into its parts, and when this is done it is customary to separate the parts with hyphens or spaces. Separating the parts of a 10-digit ISBN is also done with either hyphens or spaces, figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN number is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits. ISBN issuance is country-specific, in that ISBNs are issued by the ISBN registration agency that is responsible for country or territory regardless of the publication language. Some ISBN registration agencies are based in national libraries or within ministries of culture, in other cases, the ISBN registration service is provided by organisations such as bibliographic data providers that are not government funded. In Canada, ISBNs are issued at no cost with the purpose of encouraging Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom, United States, and some countries, where the service is provided by non-government-funded organisations. Australia, ISBNs are issued by the library services agency Thorpe-Bowker
20.
Public domain
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The term public domain has two senses of meaning. Anything published is out in the domain in the sense that it is available to the public. Once published, news and information in books is in the public domain, in the sense of intellectual property, works in the public domain are those whose exclusive intellectual property rights have expired, have been forfeited, or are inapplicable. Examples for works not covered by copyright which are therefore in the domain, are the formulae of Newtonian physics, cooking recipes. Examples for works actively dedicated into public domain by their authors are reference implementations of algorithms, NIHs ImageJ. The term is not normally applied to situations where the creator of a work retains residual rights, as rights are country-based and vary, a work may be subject to rights in one country and be in the public domain in another. Some rights depend on registrations on a basis, and the absence of registration in a particular country, if required. Although the term public domain did not come into use until the mid-18th century, the Romans had a large proprietary rights system where they defined many things that cannot be privately owned as res nullius, res communes, res publicae and res universitatis. The term res nullius was defined as not yet appropriated. The term res communes was defined as things that could be enjoyed by mankind, such as air, sunlight. The term res publicae referred to things that were shared by all citizens, when the first early copyright law was first established in Britain with the Statute of Anne in 1710, public domain did not appear. However, similar concepts were developed by British and French jurists in the eighteenth century, instead of public domain they used terms such as publici juris or propriété publique to describe works that were not covered by copyright law. The phrase fall in the domain can be traced to mid-nineteenth century France to describe the end of copyright term. In this historical context Paul Torremans describes copyright as a coral reef of private right jutting up from the ocean of the public domain. Because copyright law is different from country to country, Pamela Samuelson has described the public domain as being different sizes at different times in different countries. According to James Boyle this definition underlines common usage of the public domain and equates the public domain to public property. However, the usage of the public domain can be more granular. Such a definition regards work in copyright as private property subject to fair use rights, the materials that compose our cultural heritage must be free for all living to use no less than matter necessary for biological survival
21.
Integrated Authority File
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The Integrated Authority File or GND is an international authority file for the organisation of personal names, subject headings and corporate bodies from catalogues. It is used mainly for documentation in libraries and increasingly also by archives, the GND is managed by the German National Library in cooperation with various regional library networks in German-speaking Europe and other partners. The GND falls under the Creative Commons Zero license, the GND specification provides a hierarchy of high-level entities and sub-classes, useful in library classification, and an approach to unambiguous identification of single elements. It also comprises an ontology intended for knowledge representation in the semantic web, available in the RDF format
22.
Netherlands Institute for Art History
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The Netherlands Institute for Art History or RKD is located in The Hague and is home to the largest art history center in the world. The center specializes in documentation, archives, and books on Western art from the late Middle Ages until modern times, all of this is open to the public, and much of it has been digitized and is available on their website. The main goal of the bureau is to collect, categorize, via the available databases, the visitor can gain insight into archival evidence on the lives of many artists of past centuries. The library owns approximately 450,000 titles, of which ca.150,000 are auction catalogs, there are ca.3,000 magazines, of which 600 are currently running subscriptions. Though most of the text is in Dutch, the record format includes a link to library entries and images of known works. The RKD also manages the Dutch version of the Art and Architecture Thesaurus, the original version is an initiative of the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles, California. Their bequest formed the basis for both the art collection and the library, which is now housed in the Koninklijke Bibliotheek. Though not all of the holdings have been digitised, much of its metadata is accessible online. The website itself is available in both a Dutch and an English user interface, in the artist database RKDartists, each artist is assigned a record number. To reference an artist page directly, use the code listed at the bottom of the record, usually of the form, https, for example, the artist record number for Salvador Dalí is 19752, so his RKD artist page can be referenced. In the images database RKDimages, each artwork is assigned a record number, to reference an artwork page directly, use the code listed at the bottom of the record, usually of the form, https, //rkd. nl/en/explore/images/ followed by the artworks record number. For example, the record number for The Night Watch is 3063. The Art and Architecture Thesaurus also assigns a record for each term, rather, they are used in the databases and the databases can be searched for terms. For example, the painting called The Night Watch is a militia painting, the thesaurus is a set of general terms, but the RKD also contains a database for an alternate form of describing artworks, that today is mostly filled with biblical references. To see all images that depict Miriams dance, the associated iconclass code 71E1232 can be used as a search term. Official website Direct link to the databases The Dutch version of the Art and Architecture Thesaurus
23.
Virtual International Authority File
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The Virtual International Authority File is an international authority file. It is a joint project of national libraries and operated by the Online Computer Library Center. The project was initiated by the US Library of Congress, the German National Library, the National Library of France joined the project on October 5,2007. The project transitions to a service of the OCLC on April 4,2012, the aim is to link the national authority files to a single virtual authority file. In this file, identical records from the different data sets are linked together, a VIAF record receives a standard data number, contains the primary see and see also records from the original records, and refers to the original authority records. The data are available online and are available for research and data exchange. Reciprocal updating uses the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting protocol, the file numbers are also being added to Wikipedia biographical articles and are incorporated into Wikidata. VIAFs clustering algorithm is run every month, as more data are added from participating libraries, clusters of authority records may coalesce or split, leading to some fluctuation in the VIAF identifier of certain authority records
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This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "La Tour, Maurice Quentin de". Encyclopædia Britannica. 16 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press..
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the 