Wilfried Zeisler is curator of Russian and 19th-Century Art at Hillwood Estate, Museum and Gardens, Washington, DC. Zeisler received his doctoral degree in art history from Sorbonne University, Paris, with a dissertation on "The Purchases of French objets d'art by the Russian Court, 1881-1917," offering a dual perspective on French and Russian decorative arts in the context of political, commercial and artistic interactions of the time. He has also been a research lecturer at the École du Louvre on the subjects of French decorative arts from the Middle Age to Art Nouveau, French 19th-century art, French jewelry, 18th to 19th-century Russian art, Fabergé, and the history of Russian palaces from 1825 to 1925.