Patricia Behre Miskimin Knihy

Georges de La Tour (1593-1652) was one of the greatest French painters of the seventeenth century, but his art was rapidly forgotten after his death and has been rediscovered only in our own century. Since the major retrospective exhibition held in Paris in 1972, previously unknown paintings have continued to come to light, such as Saint John the Baptist in the Wilderness, a moving late work discovered in 1994. The exhibition celebrated by this beautiful book presents this and other new additions to La Tour's oeuvre and locates his art in the wider European context of his time

Exploring the religious dynamics of 17th-century Metz, the book delves into the tensions and occasional collaborations among Catholics, Protestants, and Jews. Miskimin reveals how the French Crown exploited these religious conflicts to advance its centralizing political agenda. While local leaders resisted ideological coexistence, the growing daily interactions among the faiths—despite their often-hostile nature—challenged established religious norms and created a more intricate social fabric within the city.