the publication of Bonaparte's Louvre


a WWW project

(cf. Gazette des Beaux-Arts, Nov. 1984 ...)
Comments to George D. McKee
gmckee@binghamton.edu
phone 607 777-4903

This site is devoted to the earliest collections of the Musée du Louvre.

Very different from what is found today at this important museum, the Louvre of Bonaparte has been characterized in our own era as "immeasurably the finest collection of [old master paintings] which has ever been assembled." The collection was formed by the means of political and military confiscations from the holdings of the richest galleries and churches in Europe; and it was dissolved in 1815, with dissolution of the regime which was ultimately responsible for it.

Engravings of paintings in the museum's collection are illustrated on the pages here following. Executed by the finest engravers of the period under the direction of Pierre Laurent and his son Henry, they were originally published in six volumes, 380 large in-folio plates, which are here reproduced (with premission) from copies in the Rare Books Library at Binghamton University and in the Koch Rare Books Library at Cornell University. 122 examples are now available in jpeg format in either of two indexes: (1) an arrangement under names of the artists of the paintings represented, according to attributions recorded in the publication; and (2) a purely numerical synposis, which conforms to the sequence of its contents according to the publication's binding tables.

Also available here are three views of the paintings' installations in the Museum galleries. These are based on drawings by Maria Cosway and were published by Julius Griffiths, c. 1803-1806; they are reproduced with permission from copies in Library of the American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia (photos courtesy of Andrew McClellan, Tufts University):

A. | B. | C.

Eventually, this site will comprise a generous selection of the finest paintings of the Louvre of Bonaparte -- although not by any means a complete presentation of these collections. For purposes of comparison, the final catalogue of exhibited paintings (1814) contains 1233 entries, and this, too, was certainly not complete. Perhaps, the present Internet site will stimulate the airing of other research of this subject.

Its chief purpose, however, is to disseminate upon the web an assortment of good, very rich jpegs, representing a rather canonical selection of European "old master paintings"; and in this display of a treasure of North American research libraries, the project will also demonstrate the contribution of a now defunct artistic practice, reproductive engraving, to popular assumptions about art and Art History. Also, the present site will supplement documentation published around the exhibition devoted to the Louvre's earliest director, Vivant Denon, during the fall of 1999.

July, 1999.

http://bingweb.binghamton.edu/~gmckee/Louvre_p/