The Louvre and Versailles

Generally acknowledged as an expert on French classical architecture, Christopher Tadgell has been publishing in the field for well over four decades. He studied art history at the Courtauld Institute in London and in 1974 was awarded his PhD for a thesis on the Neoclassical architectural theorist, Ange-Jacques Gabriel. He subsequently taught in London and at the Kent Institute of Art and Design in Canterbury, with interludes as F.L. Morgan Professor of Architectural Design at the University of Louisville and as a Member of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. His History of Architecture in India (London 1990, several reprints) is the definitive one-volume account of the architecture of the subcontinent, while many publications on French architecture include the standard account in Baroque and Rococo Architecture and Decoration (ed. Blunt, London 1978). His seven-volume series Architecture in Context is an unmatched survey of the seminal architectural traditions from the earliest times to the end of the 20th century. He has contributed many articles on Indian and French architecture to The Grove Dictionary of Art and other major reference books, including the forthcoming revision of Banister Fletcher's A History of Architecture.