Antoinette Friedenthal

This contribution publishes a miniature portrait of Pierre Jean Mariette in the Victoria & Albert Museum, London. The identification of the sitter is amply confirmed by comparisons with the two known portrait drawings of Pierre Jean Mariette, as well as contextual documentary evidence.

A drawing in the Albertina, Vienna, by the Franco-Flemish artist Pierre van Schuppen is here restored to its original context in the print collection of Prince Eugene of Savoy. Surviving clues indicate that it is the artist’s self-portrait placed at the beginning of the prince’s now lost Van Schuppen album. The latter not only held the artist’s printed oeuvre but also twenty-three drawings. As such, the volume belonged to a group of mixed media albums in Eugene’s collection. The evidence also allows for the secure identification of the sitter of a striking portrait by Nicolas de Largillière in the Fine Arts Museums, San Francisco. Especially well known for his portraits, Van Schuppen was among the first printmakers to be admitted to the “Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture” in Paris.

A note by Pierre Jean Mariette concerning drawings by Rembrandt owned by Prince Eugene of Savoy is published here for the first time. With other evidence, it establishes that an important group of sheets by the artist and his school in the Albertina, Vienna, came from Eugene’s collection by way of the Imperial Court Library. This is the oldest confirmed provenance for Rembrandt drawings in the Albertina and one of the earliest known provenances for drawings by the artist.

The second half of the nineteenth century was a crucial period for the consolidation of art history as an academic discipline in German-speaking countries. That period also witnessed a sharpening of attitudes toward the genres of the discipline’s literature — attitudes sometimes shaped by the different tasks art historians confronted when working in a museum or university. The status of the catalogue raisonné cannot be viewed in terms of a simple dichotomy between these two fields of activity, however, the less so as the opinions of individual protagonists occasionally changed over time and according to circumstances. As such, the numerous voices assembled in this contribution reveal an interesting variety of methodological approaches. The artist’s biography emerges here as a telling counterpoint to the evolution of the catalogue raisonné at a time of elated nation-statehood that was of paramount importance for the history of art history. https://tidsskrift.dk/passepartout/issue/view/9502

This contribution publishes a drawing in the Albertina that shows a skilful copy of Rembrandt’s etched portrait of Jan Six. The drawing’s early context of preservation can be reconstructed on the basis of archival material: It once formed part of the Rembrandt oeuvre which Jean Mariette and his son Pierre Jean assembled in 1717–18 for Prince Eugene of Savoy. There the drawing was openly declared to function as a substitute for the etching which – because of its great rarity – could not be supplied at the time. The presence of this drawing in the Albertina today and an analysis of the extant final draft of the Mariettes’ catalogue for Prince Eugene show that the interpretation of a document first published in 1969 needs to be revised. Contrary to the conclusion proposed then and in subsequent articles, Eugene’s Rembrandt oeuvre had not been bought for the Dresden print cabinet in 1743 but entered the imperial library in Vienna in 1738.

The first catalogue raisonné of Rembrandt’s paintings was established by the London art dealer John Smith. Published in 1836, it originated as part of a larger series, itself motivated by the author’s endeavour to transcend his daily business while at the same time aiming to combine 'pleasure and profit'. Investigating Smith’s connoisseurial practices, this essay looks at his surviving correspondence and unpublished, hitherto unexamined archival materials. Among these are the notebooks which Smith kept during his many travels in Great Britain and on the continent. The archival record also shows that a systematic consultation of auction catalogues was of particular importance for Smith. The manner in which he arrived at his judgments – though clearly shaped by a specific commercial context – speaks of a truly personal style. Finally, the article also publishes an unknown portrait of Smith.

This contribution publishes a newly discovered etched portrait of Pierre I Mariette, the founder of the “Mariette Dynasty“, of whom no portrait has been known so far. It forms part of the collection of prints supplied by Jean Mariette and Pierre Jean Mariette to Prince Eugene of Savoy today in the Albertina, Vienna; another impression of this etching is preserved in the portrait collection which Pierre Jean Mariette had arranged for the same patron, now in the Austrian National Library, Vienna. A reading of the correspondence between Jean Mariette and Pierre Jean Mariette, who was then in Vienna (1717/18), sheds light on the circumstances under which the portrait in the Albertina entered the prince’s collection. The letters also elucidate the genesis of the portrait catalogue today in the British Museum compiled by Pierre Jean Mariette for the same patron. Finally, the article sets the new portrait, made by the sitter’s grandson Jean Mariette after François de Poilly, in the context of other known portraits of members of the Mariette family.

The correspondence from 1717-19 between the Parisian print and book dealer Jean Mariette and his son Pierre-Jean Mariette – today far better known as a connoisseur than his father – is a remarkable source of information. Originating in a milieu where ‘tacit knowledge’ has always been of great importance, the letters provide insights into the expertise of specialized dealers and its genesis, and they are also valuable documents for the history of collecting. The Mariettes’ untiring efforts to assemble artists’ oeuvres for the print collection of Prince Eugene of Savoy involved a variety of different practices, material and mental processes which are retraced here on the example of the Raphael oeuvre. At the same time, the present contribution demonstrates that the art market is a fruitful but still neglected source for the history of scholarship. Building on an investigation of artists’ oeuvres, of the catalogues compiled by the Mariettes, and of their later reception by Adam Bartsch, this article will also show that the history of the catalogue raisonné is a province of media history.

The monumental nine-volume Catalogue Raisonné by the London art dealer John Smith (1781-1855), covering the works of 41 painters, appeared between 1829 and 1842. In spite of the common recognition of its importance by the specialized secondary literature, this publication has hardly been looked at in a wider art historical context. Reasons for this may be found in the critical reactions by a few contemporary connoisseurs, as well as in the ambivalent status of the genre of the catalogue raisonné. The issues raised by Smith’s volumes and their reception not only pertain to questions of content, they also relate to such fundamental themes as scientific credibility, professional ethos, and the recognition of authority. As far as can be ascertained, this is one of the first instances where criticism of the market’s involvement in this genre makes itself heard. In the 19th century, art history’s search for a viable position among other fields of study led to considerable tensions. These not only resulted in precise demarcations of the discipline’s scope in relation to other academic fields, they also shaped certain patterns of argument which characterize the reception of catalogues raisonnés even today. In addition to addressing these points, the present study also throws some light on the market’s contribution to the formation of categories and systems of classification in the history of art.

The catalogue raisonné is likely to have been instrumental in the shaping of the art historical canon. However, although of lasting success as a genre of art literature, it is often criticized for fear that it lends support to the art market. Its unresolved status within the research literature may have contributed to the fact that its history and impact have rarely been investigated from a scholarly point of view.
It is precisely the intersection of commercial and scholarly ambitions which stands at the outset of this contribution. Focusing on a period beginning with the relevant publications of the French art dealer Edme-François Gersaint (1751) and ending with those of his English colleague John Smith (1829-42), this essay investigates aspects of the making of the catalogue raisonné, its functions, its inherent criteria for ordering the material, and its intended audience.
The material adduced illustrates the uneasy relations between commerce and academic art history. Of particular interest in this context, phenomena of demarcation are evident both between these two realms and inside each of them. It is suggested here that these tensions were decisive for the shaping of the catalogue raisonné: its specific form would not have evolved without such conflicts of interest. Indeed, it is noteworthy for the history of art history that, from the early nineteenth century onwards, the catalogue raisonné was slowly appropriated by an increasingly institutionalized academic art history.