From the Library of Alexandre Brongniart, Director of the Manufacture Royale de Sèvres

(LOUVRE).

Notice des Statues, Bustes et Bas-Reliefs, de la Galerie des Antiques du Musée Napoléon, ouverte pour la première fois le 18 Brumaire an 9 [9 November 1800].

180 pp. 12mo (145 x 90 mm.), cont. blue stiff paste-paper boards, label in manuscript on spine. Paris: L’Imprimerie des Sciences et Arts, An XI [but ca. 1803].

The rare catalogue for a large exhibition of antiquities seized from Italy, consisting of 223 objects. This livret begins with descriptions of the ceilings in six rooms of the museum. Each piece is analyzed at length, with historical and mythological explanations, scholarly notes on the materials and any reproductions, and includes the Italian institution or collection from which it was confiscated — e.g., the Vatican, the Villa Albani, the ducal palace of Modena, the Capitoline Museum, etc. A small number of the exhibited items were loaned from French collections. This livret closes with the description of eight marble columns used to decorate the galleries.

Very good copy; WorldCat records only two examples in North America. Contemporary pencil annotations in the margins, possibly by Brongniart (see below). Several leaves are closely shaved at the fore-edge, touching the text in a few instances. Minor spotting throughout. From the library of Alexandre Brongniart (1770-1847), the celebrated director of the Manufacture Royale (later Nationale) de Sèvres.

❧ Marquet de Vasselot, Répertoire des catalogues du Musée du Louvre (1793-1926) (1927), 9.

Price: $500.00

Item ID: 6781