&"In her extraordinary new study of collecting, Rochelle Ziskin deftly explores the moment when leadership in taste migrated from the court of Louis XIV to newly fashionable Paris. She persuasively argues that two rival circles competed, endowing collectibles with distinct social meanings. Ziskin&'s examination is developed in greatest depth and subtlety when she treats the houses of the leaders of each group, Pierre Crozat and the comtesse de Verrue. While Crozat established a circle of erudite art connoisseurs, Verrue created a sanctuary for art lovers. In assessing the significance of these social practices, Ziskin turns to the social codes embedded in collections and the public and private uses of the spaces that showcased them, and she examines the relationships between collecting, contemporary art criticism, and the literary Quarrel of the Ancients and Moderns. She assesses the importance of the regent and his collections at the Palais-Royal and draws new conclusions about the roles played by contemporary artists&-especially Watteau and Rosalba Carriera but also Claude Audran, Charles de La Fosse, the Boullogne brothers, the Coypels, and the architects Cartaud and Oppenord. Blending original research carried out in Paris, Stockholm, Turin, London, Munich, and Monaco with new questions regarding the ideological foundations of social and gender constructions, she has written an original work of high quality that will, like her book on the Place Vendôme, have a substantial impact on the field.&" &-Robert Neuman, Florida State University.