Great Women Collectors

Catherine the Great of Russia acquired art voraciously. Cosmetics magnate Helena Rubinstein collected African and Victorian glass. Couturier Coco Chanel amassed an enormous hoard of French eighteenth-century furniture. This fascinating book offers the first-ever look at these enterprising women -- along with Madame de Pompadour, Empress Josephine, Marjorie Merriweather Post, Gertrude Stein, Mary Cassatt and Peggy Guggenheim, among others -- and tells how they assembled significant and valuable collections of art, silver, jewelry, textiles, ceramics, photography, fossils and much more.

Charlotte Gere is a London-based specialist in nineteenth-century decorative arts, particularly jewelry. Marina Vaizey was educated at Cambridge and Harvard universities. She has been an art critic for over thirty years, the last eighteen at the Sunday Times (London). She has been a member of over twenty arts-related committees, has curated several exhibitions, and written a number of books and exhibition catalogues. Vaizey has also edited the Art Quarterly and Review for the National Art Collections Fund in England. She is currently a trustee of several museums and continues to write, lecture, and travel.