The Judgment of Paris chronicles the dramatic decade in Paris between two famous exhibitions-the scandalous Salon des Refuses in 1863 and the first Impressionist showing in 1874-set against the rise and dramatic fall of Napoleon III and the Second Empire after the Franco-Prussian War. A tale of many artists, it revolves around the lives of two,-Ernest Meissonier and Edouard Manet. Other notable figures such as Zola, Delacroix, Courbet, Baudelaire, Whistler, Monet, Hugo, Degas appear in King's novelistic history of the power of Art.
"In all, King pulls off a tour de force of complex narrative that readers of his previous books about the Sistine Chapel or Brunelleschi's dome will have come to expect."-Diane Johnson, New York Times Book Review
"Riveting...so thorough is King's grasp of the Second Empire's cultural politics, so ironic his wit and choice of detail, that his text remains a page-turner throughout."-Francine du Plessix Gray, Los Angeles Times
"[A] spirited account of the decade-long battle between France's officially sanctioned history painters and the wild tribe of upstarts contemptuously dismissed as "impressionists"...[told] with tremendous energy and skill."-William Grimes, The New York Times
"This is the most engrossing, finely written, richly detailed book of popular history I've encountered in a long, long time."-David Walton, Philadelphia Inquirer