Le Musée français

Le Musée français, title page, 1803. Vignette by Raphael Urbain Massard, from a drawing by J.M. Moreau le jeune.
"La Belle Jardinière" by Raphael. Engraving by Pierre Audouin after a drawing by Pierre-Paul Prud'hon (image 34.4 x 23.3 cm) of the painting in the Louvre Museum; published in 1803 in the first fascicle of Le Musée français.
"Le Laocoon," Roman sculpture. Engraved by Charles Clément Bervic, from a drawing by Pierre Bouillon (image 34 x 27.7 cm); published in the final fascicle of the first series of Le Musée français, 1812.

Le Musée français is a French publication of engravings issued in fascicles in Paris between 1803 and 1824. It had three successive titles, Le Musée français, Le Musée Napoléon and Le Musée royal, and consists of a total of 504 large-format engravings of paintings and classical sculptures in the museum at the Louvre during this era. Printed on large in-folio sheets and issued with commentary texts and prefatory essays in letterpress, it is usually bound in six volumes and is treated as two separate publications in library cataloging and enumerative bibliography: e.g., the library catalogue of The Royal Academy of Arts (London) -- Le Musée français (4 vols.)[1] and Le Musée royal (2 vols.).[2][3] The issue of individual livraisons (fascicles) is recorded in the legal deposit for prints in Paris (le dépot légal de l’estampe) up to 1812[4]

The project was initiated and directed by the engraver Pierre-François Laurent[5] with assistance and financial backing of his in-law Louis-Nicolas-Joseph Robillard de Péronville [fr] until 1809, when the two of them died and the direction passed to Laurent's son Henri, who was also an engraver.[6] Benefitting from a governmental loan signed personally by Bonaparte, a new subscription with a second series of plates was started in 1812 under the new title, Le Musée Napoléon.[7] Its issue was suspended at the collapse of the First French Empire; and when it resumed in 1817, this title was replaced by a third one, reflecting the new name of the museum, Le Musée royal. It continued to be directed by Henri Laurent, who received the official appointment "graveur du Cabinet du Roi"[8] from the new King Louis XVIII.

The first series, issued in 80 fascicles between 1803 and 1812 under the title Le Musée français, contains 343 unnumbered plates and their commentaries, along with 4 prefatory essays. The second series, usually referenced by the title it received in 1817, contains 161 unnumbered plates, their commentaries and two essays and was issued in 40 fascicles between 1812 and 1824.[9] The plates were often exhibited by their engravers as individual art works at the Salons du Louvre, but they were not distributed separately apart from the subscriptions. They show a diversity of styles of engraving, employing burin with and without the assistance of etching and stipple,[10] as was practiced at this period in order to represent narrative painting, portraiture and landscape—and also classical sculpture—prior to the invention of photography.

The commentary texts and essays were written by Simon-Célestin Croze-Magnan (until 1806), Toussaint-Bernard Émeric-David (between 1806-1812), Ennio Quirino Visconti (1806 until his death in 1818), François Guizot (between 1812 and 1824) and Charles le comte de Clarac (after 1818).[11]

Reception by contemporaries

It was one of several publications devoted to illustration of the paintings and classical sculptures seized by revolutionary governments for permanent display in the newly established Museum at the Louvre.[12] Le Musée français was specially esteemed for the large dimension of its engravings which offered a rare occasion for display of the pictorial richness of the engraver's art; each would have required months or sometimes years to complete. Over 150 engravers from across Europe were employed in their production, utlilizing preparatory drawings by over 60 draftsmen, including some of the finest hands of their generation.[13] Its appearance was welcomed in the official newspaper, Le Moniteur, as an important artistic achievement in its own right, more worthy of public attention than any similar work since the origin of the art of engraving, itself.[14] Soon afterwards the Museum Director, Vivant Denon, praised the Musée français as a “monument des arts” and ended the Museum's own official program to engrave the art works in its collections.[15] In governmental reports, as well as in press reviews, its preparation was credited to have single-handedly revived the practice of burin engraving in France and become the source of "a great school" in its encouragement of the development of skills which were deemed important for the advancement of art and national commerce: the simulation of the qualities of highly regarded art works by means of print, in a manner suitable for the transmission of information, artistic inspiration and memorialisation.[16]

In the bibliographic literature it was commonly described as “collection magnifique.”[17] Brunet's repertory contains no work having a comparable quantity of large format, fully realized reproductive engravings;[18] and according to the official juries of the Exposition de 1806 and the Exposition de 1819, the quality of execution was "perfect".[19]

Production

Undertaken as a commercial enterprise, the publication remained in private hands throughout its long history, despite its national prominence.  This “unofficial” status enabled its production during an era of violent political instability and warfare, and it facilitated the administration of hundreds of commissions of considerable expense to artists of various nationalities without the political scrutiny required of governmental patronage and awards.  

Laurent initially proposed his project in 1790 in a request for authorization to engrave the collections of paintings, classical sculpture and drawings of Louis XVI, without expense to the royal treasury.[20]  His idea was modelled on the celebrated Recueil Crozat of seventy years earlier;[21] but official policy now reserved this privilege for the retinue of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture, which was in turmoil due to events of the French Revolution.  Laurent claimed to have funding for employment of thirty engravers and “a large number” draftsmen, along with a commercial network for international distribution.  A year later in August of 1791—two years before the opening of the Museum itself—he obtained permission to proceed and within 4 months was able to show preparatory drawings to the King; a handful of contracts for engravings are known from this and the following year, and one of the engravings was publicly exhibited at the Salon of 1793.[22]

Despite political contention, his authorization was renewed by the regimes of the Convention, the Directorate and the Consulat; and it was defended legislatively by no less a voice than Sebastien Mercier against the proposal of a state monopoly for the engraving of the Museum's collections.[23]  At the time of his alliance with Robillard-Peronville in 1802, Laurent was able to contribute a project of engravings and preparatory drawings valued at 50,000 francs;[24] but this considerable investment was only 20% of what would eventually be needed to produce the 343 engravings of the first series of Le Musée français, without accounting for the additional expense of paper, printing, letterpress, etc.[25]

Long before its completion, the publication's second series was established as a legally independent entity in an agreement of 1807 with the investor and banker François Parguez.[26]  The plates of the earliest appearing fascicles of the second series would have already been complete, or nearly complete, by the date of Bonaparte's decree of a massive loan in support its publication in April 1812.[27]  Equally munificent was the act of Louis XVIII in 1816 to dissolve this obligation to the advantage of Laurent and company, allowing the subscription to resume until finished in 2 volumes in 1824.[28]  According to a note addressed to Henri Laurent and published in the Moniteur, it was the new King's pleasure to restore the cultural prestige of his dynasty by encouraging endeavors such as this, which had been begun under the reign of his brother Louis XVI; this message was communicated by the King's First Gentleman, who was in fact the son of one of the publication's earliest patrons in 1790.[29]

The King's munificence is all the more remarkable because many of the engravings awaiting publication in 1816 depicted art works which were no longer a part of the Museum but had been returned to their former owners following the collapse of the First Empire.  While the publication therefore recalled to contemporaries artistic masterpieces now lost to France, its engravings remained a subject of deep appreciation, art works of which the fidelity of their rendering was now admired for its own sake as “an invention” of art.[30]

The Plates' Re-editions

The engraving plates were subject to reprinting, integrally as complete sets, and individually as separately published engravings, on many occasions after completion of the two subscriptions.  In fact, there is evidence that their marketable appeal for the representation of celebrated paintings and sculptures survived well past the historical development of photography for this purpose, which suggests that these images may have contributed significantly to the reputation and study of these specific paintings and sculptures throughout the nineteenth century and to the Art Historical canon of subsequent eras.  However, without a generally accepted, systematized record of the engravings, the identification of their impressions is not simple:  the plates lack syndetic indications such as numbering, and have no labelling, apart from the titles of their subjects and their artists’ names.[31]

All of the 161 engraved plates of the second series, the Musée royal, were sold at auction in a single lot in March 1824, purchased by the Paris book publisher Jules Renouard.[32] The first series had been advertised for sale in completed volumes since 1812 by the descendants of Robillard-Peronville, and the fonds of its plates was announced for sale in Le Moniteur in 1826[33] before being reprinted in a new edition in 1829, published by the English bookstore in Paris, A. and W. Galignani, with a new title page and a revised subtitle having reference to “the most beautiful paintings and sculptures” which “existaient au Louvre avant 1815” (i.e., which existed at the Louvre before 1815).[34] An American art publisher, Shearjashub Spooner, claimed to have purchased all of the plates of both series in London in 1846, with the intent of a North American re-edition, but the edition did not occur.[35]  The two united series were also offered for sale to the Chalcographie of the Louvre Museum in 1853 and again in 1854 through the agency of the Parisian printer, Sauvé.[36]  Ten years later, July 4, 1865, the printer Charles Chardon l’aîné filed in legal deposit, as was required by law, separately published new editions of Bervic’s engraving of “Laocoon”, Giraudet’s “Centaur,” J.J. Avril fils’ “Euterpe” after a drawing by Granger, Laugier’s “Le Tibre,” also after Granger, and Laugier’s “Vénus accroupie du Vatican”—all classical sculptures, due to be released in Paris by the dealer Danlos l’aîné;[37] and in the following five years up to 1870, similar filings yielded hundreds of similar listings of editions of individual prints in the journal La BIbliographie de la France, without a single reference to the Musée français or the plates' origin in any larger, inclusive publication.[38]   However, a final collective edition is recorded ten years later, printed in Paris by Félix Hermet with the title:  Musée (le) du Louvre. Collection de 500 planches gravées au burin par les sommités contemporaines, d'après les grands maîtres en peinture et en sculpture des diverses écoles  (i.e., Collection of 500 plates engraved with burin by the most renowned contemporaries after the great masters of painting and sculpture of the various schools).[39]  More significant still of the esteem which these engravings once inspired is a publication of 1863 which would consist of the “photographic reproduction” of a copy of the engravings of the Musée français, by Jeanne Laplanche undertaken because the original had become so highly valued and rare.[40]

References

  1. ^ "Le Musée Français, recueil complet des tableaux, statues et bas-reliefs, qui composent la collection nationale". Royal Academy.
  2. ^ "Le Musée Royal ...ou Recueil de Gravures d'après les Plus Beaux Tableaux, Statues et Bas-reliefs de la Collection Royale". Royal Academy.
  3. ^ See also the bibliographies: Jacques Charles Brunet, Manuel du libraire et de l'amateur de livres, 5e éd., t. 4 (Paris, 1863), cols. 1335-36 and t. 6, col.561, no. 9370, and Georges Vicaire, Manuel de l'amateur des livres du XIXe siècle (Paris, 1894–1910), vol. 5, cols. 1229–1231.
  4. ^ Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des Estampes et des Photographies, Rés., Ye10 pet. in-fol. After 1812, the issue of livraisons is recorded in the section for books and perioidicals in the journal La Bibliographie de la France.
  5. ^ See also Roger Portalis and Henri Beraldi, Les Graveurs du dix-huitième siècle, t. 2 (Paris, 1880-82), pp. 558-60.
  6. ^ "Henri Laurent (1779-1844)". The British Museum. Retrieved 27 January 2022. Also Dictionnaire de biographie français, fasc. CXIV (2001), col. 1421-22.
  7. ^ George McKee, "Une Mesure napoléonienne d'aide à la gravure", Nouvelles de l'estampe, no. 120 (déc. 1991), pp. 6-17.
  8. ^ Dictionnaire du biographie français, fasc. CXIV (2001), col. 1421-22.
  9. ^ For details about the history of the publication of these works, the catalogue of the Royal Academy of Arts, as noted above, refers to G. McKee, “The Musée français and the Musée royal: a history of the publication of an album of fine engravings, with a catalogue of plates and discussion of similar ventures,” MLS thesis, University of Chicago, 1981. The Musée français has also been studied by Caecilie Weissert, Ein Kunstbuch?  le Musée français (Stuttgart: Engel, 1994) and Robert Verhoogt, “Art reproduction and the nation,” in Art crossing borders (Leiden, 2019), pp. 311-12; Italian contributors are discussed by Vittorio Sgarbi, et al., Felice Giani : maître du néoclassicisme italien à la cour de Napoléon (Alessandria, 2010); on contributions by the artist J.A.D. Ingres, see Sarah Betzer, “Ingres Shadows,” Art Bulletin, vol. 95 (2013), pp. 78-101 and Mehdi Korchane, "Un Laboratoire des ombres: dessiner pour la gravure," in Ingres avant Ingres: dessiner pour peindre (Musée des Beaux-Arts d’Orléans, 2021). A good bibliography of other scholarship on the subject is provided by Peter Fuhring at the website of the Custodia Fondation. "Les Marques de Collections de Dessins & d'Estampes: L.5021". www.marquesdecollections.fr (in French). Retrieved 2022-12-16.
  10. ^ E.g. Paul Chassard, Pausanais français, ou Description du Salon de 1806 (Paris, 1808), pp. 504-505 ; altogether 107 plates were exhibited at the Salons between 1804 and 1824 – see McKee, 1981, Appendice 4, pp. 141-43. Individual plates were often singled out for praise, as well, in press notices of the appearance of fascicles, e.g. Le Moniteur, 11 juin 1805 (p. 1084). A generous selection of examples treated as individual artworks may be examined with detailed catalogue information at the British Museum online catalogue.
  11. ^ A re-edition of the engravings of Le Musée français in 1829, employed entirely new texts by Jean Duchesne l’aîné; the same texts were also used as commentaries for the outline prints of paintings and sculptures published in Le Musee de peinture et de sculpture of Etienne Achille Réveil. The essays and commentaries by Emeric-David, Visconti, Guizot and le come de Clarac were subsequently re-edited and reprinted with their other writings, without illustrations.
  12. ^ G. McKee, "The Publication of Bonaparte's Louvre", Gazette des Beaux-Arts, s. 6, t. 104 (nov. 1984), pp. 165-172. On the museum and its collections in this era, see Andrew McClellan, Inventing the Louvre: art, politics, and the origin of the modern museum in 18th century Paris (Berkeley: 2009) and Cecil Gould, Trophy of conquest: the Musee Napoleon and the creation of the Louvre (London, 1965).
  13. ^ McKee, 1981, Appendix 6 and Appendix 7 contain a catalogue of the engravings and indexes of the artists who produced them; the draftsmen have been studied by McKee, "L'Art de dessiner l'art: Ingres, Bouillion, Dutertre et autres copistes au service de la gravure vers 1800," La Revue du Louvre, 1995, nos. 5/6 (décembre), pp. 73-90.
  14. ^ Le Moniteur, 5 juin 1803, p. 1158 (letter of Nicolas Ponce).
  15. ^ Le Moniteur, 8 sept. 1803, pp. 1547-48. On the Museum's project to engrave its paintings, see Mémoires du visible : cuivres et estampes de la Chalcographie du Louvre (Réunion des Musées nationaux, 2002).
  16. ^ See official reports of the section des Beaux-Arts of the Institut by J. LeBreton, ”Notice des travaux de la Classe des Beaux-Arts, ” Nouvelles des arts, t. 4 (1804), p. 44 and C.C. Bervic, ”La Gravure, ” edited by U. van de Sandt, Rapports à l’Empereur sur le progrès des sciences, des lettres et des arts depuis 1789 [Paris: Belin, 1989], pp. 240-45 and ; the popular success is evident from journalism: Le Moniteur, 5 juin 1803 and 19 mars 1804; Journal de débats, 30 mai 1804 (p. 4); Mercure de France, 11 oct. 1806 (p. 88); Journal de Paris, 1 mars 1808 (p. 413); Journal de l’Empire, 30 août 1813. On the revival of “la gravure historique” in the early 19th century attributed to the influence of plates in this publication, see Georges Duplessis, Les Merveilles de la gravure (Paris, 1869), pp. 372-78. 
  17. ^ Brunet and Vicaire, as cited; also, Henri Cohen, Guide de l’amateur de livres à gravures du XVIIIe siècle, 6e éd. (Paris, 1912), cols. 743-45, ”magnifique ouvrage.”
  18. ^ Cf. the bibliography of this kind of publication in Brunet, t. 6, “Table Méthodique,” cols. 561-64.
  19. ^ McKee, 1991, p. 8, note 9; a judgement reiterated by the jury at the Exposition de 1819, paraphrased in Le Moniteur, 17 fév. 1824: “the most perfect to have occurred since the existence of the art of engraving.”
  20. ^ See references and discussion in the Wikipedia article "Pierre Francois Laurent." Documents noted by A. Tuetey, Répertoire des sources manuscrites de l’histoire de Paris pendant la Révolution française, t. 3 (1894), item no. 1189 ; also, nos. 1207, 2102, 2106.  Laurent's initial proposal was presented to the duc d’Angivillier, Directeur de Batiments du Roi, by Alexandre le duc d’Aumont, Premier gentilhomme du Roi, with the note that he had a “great interest” in the project.
  21. ^ Brunet, t. 6 (Table), item no. 9379 (col. 561); studied by Benedict Leica, “An Art Book and Its Viewers: The "Recueil Crozat" and the Uses of Reproductive Engraving,” Eighteenth-Century Studies, Vol. 38, No. 4 (Summer, 2005), pp. 623-649.
  22. ^ Archives nationales de France, O/1/1921, "Journal des Renvois et Décisions," p. 144 (24 déc. 1791) : note of request of M. l’abbé Bonnet, a collaborator of Laurent, to present for examination drawings ”ready to be delivered to engravers,” pursuant to Laurent's project. Early contracts are noted by McKee, 1981, p. 120 (following Portalis and Beraldi); see also, Nouvelles archives de l'art français, s.2, t.III (1882), p. 318-19 and Fondation Custodia, 1984 A.152. The exhibited engraving was Miger's "Tancrède blessé," after the drawing by Touzé of the painting by Mola (McKee cat. 105), not published until 1805.
  23. ^ Discussed by G. McKee, “Collection publique et droit de reproduction, les origines de la Chalcographie du Louvre, 1794-1797, » Revue de l’art, 98 (1992), p.p. 54-65.
  24. ^ The publication's instrument of incorporation, 9 March 1802: Minutier central de Paris, Etude XIX (Delacour), 920-21 (18 ventôse l’an 10); Laurent's contribution is noted Article 5.  His various financial arrangements during the previous decade of work are noted in the legal brief (factum), Premier aperçu de l’affaire pour M. Robillard Peronville contre M. Croze-Magnan, jan. 1807 (1806), pp. 5-6 (relating to litigation concerning the removal of Croze-Magnan as author of the publication's commentary texts.)
  25. ^ The costs of the “first series” of the Musée français were summarized in the decree of a loan in support of the “second series,” in 1812 – see McKee, 1991, p. 17; these figures were presumably based on examination of the voluminous filing of business documents of the publication which survives today in the Archives nationales de France, F/21/564.
  26. ^ A copy of the agreement may be found in AnF F/21/564 (neither Robillard-Peronville nor any of his descendants participated in the funding of the publication's "second series"). The Parguez family of Poissy is also remembered as a benefactor of the collection of early French lithographs of the Département des Estampes et de la Photographie of the Bibliothèque nationale de France, and as a patron of the artists Delacroix and Géricault, in Philippe Burty's introduction to the auction catalogue of 1861: Collection Parguez: lithographies, oeuvres complets de Géricault, Charlet et H. Vernet, Delbergue-Cormont, commissaire-priseur (Paris, 22-24 avril 1861), pp. XII-XIII.  François Parguez, Inspecteur de la Caisse de Poissy, was mentioned in the Almanach royal, 1818, p. 842. The family has been studied by Sylvie Legrand-Rossi, « Les dessins de Jean-Louis Prieur achetés par l’Union cenbtral des Arts décoratifs à la Baronne Parguez en 1896 », in Dessiner et ciseler le bronze : jean-Louis Prieur (1712-1795), exh. cat. Musée Nessim de Camondo, Paris, 2015-2016.
  27. ^ The entire decree and its associated reports are published by McKee, 1991.  The subscription to the second series was announced with a long article in the Moniteur, 30 August 1812; its first livraison was announced 9 Oct. in La Bibliographie de la France and consisted of H.G. Chatillon's engraving of “Antinuous en bon Génie” (McKee cat. no. 405), A. Girardet after Jules Romain, “Le Triomphe de Vespasien et de Titus” (cat. no. 347), C. Haldenwang after Claude, “La Fête villageoise” (cat. no. 386), J.C. Ulmer after Van der Helst, “Les Bourguemestres distribuant le Prix du Jeu de l’Arc” (cat. no. 378).
  28. ^ Ministerial exchanges concerining the dissolution of the government's loan to Laurent and the return of his engraved plates which were being held as security for repayment are found in AnF, O/3/142. See Moniteur, 25 Feb. 1823 for note of the presentation of the final fascicle to the King : "M. Henri Laurent, graveur du Roi, éditeur et directeur des gravures du ‘Musée royal , et M. François Parguez , son associé, ont eu l’honneur de présenter au Roi la 40e livraison qui termine leur ouvrage." According to La Bibliographie de la France, the final 40th livraison wasn't released publicly for another year, until Feb. 22, 1824.
  29. ^ Moniteur, 16 mars 1817, note of Louis-Marie-Celeste D’Aumont, son of Alexandre D’Aumont who had personally forwarded Pierre Laurent's original proposal to the King's minister in August, 1790, noted above (19).  Resumption of the publication under its new title had been announced in Le Moniteur, 8 sept. 1816.
  30. ^ Anonymous commentary in Moniteur, 2 jan. 1819, p. 6: “... cette fidélité même est une invention.“ Only one engraving was commissioned after 1816: Z. Prévost's plate after a drawing by Lancrenon of the recently discovered classical sculpture “Vénus de Milo,” (cat. no. 503) issued in the 39th livraison, 22 Feb. 1824.
  31. ^ In a special notice (i.e. "avertissement") the publisher explained that the reason for issuing the engravings without any numbering or predetermined sequence was to leave their arrangement and their binding in volumes to the discretion of the owner.  This practice is said to have been conventional with 18th century illustrated publications known as recueils -- see discussion by Leica. In consideration of the length of time required for completion of the subscription, however, provisional binding tables were provided for the benefit of those wishing to make-up volumes before the publication was complete. These are the tables employed in the volumes reproduced on the Internet by the Institut national d'Histoire de l'Art t in Paris. Different binding tables were also provided at the end of the subscription, designating the contents of 4 volumes of (1) history paintings, (2) genre subjects and portraits, (3) landscapes, (4) classical sculptures, in more or less equal numbers, sorted by schools. This sequence is the basis of McKee's (1981) catalogue numbering. A concordance of the two sequences is contained in the Table of Engravings, in the Annex here below.
  32. ^ ) The sale’s announcement  was the subject of a long, appreciative article in the Moniteur, 17 Feb. 1824, pp. 190-91; it was said to be required due to the death of one of the owners, probably Parquez.  The sale was recorded by Casimir Noel, notaire, Minutier Central (Etude LXVIII), 828 (19 mars 1824).
  33. ^ Journal du commerce, 24 août 1826.  Announcement of the availability of copies of the publication had appeared in the Moniteur, 29 juin 1813 and the Journal de l’Empire, 4 août 1813.  Cf. the agreement of Henri Laurent (acting as heir to his father) and the Robillard-Peronville estate, 2 August 1809, Minutier central, Etude XIX 935 (Delacour), 23 avril 1809, concerning the completion of the publication and its eventual ownership.
  34. ^ Prospectus for the new edition: La Quotidienne, 2 fév. 1828, pp. 3-4.  Copies are recorded in Worldcat., OCLC no. 1924437.
  35. ^ Shearjashub Spooner, An Appeal to the people of the United States in behalf of artists, and the public weal. (New York, 1854)
  36. ^ Recorded in the journal of the museum administration, Archives du Louvre, C5 10 mai 1853 and 7 janvier 1854.
  37. ^ AnF, “Dépôt légal des Estampes,“ *F/18(VI) 73, nos. 2094-2098.  See Image of France, nos. 81715, 81717-21 (Bibliographie de la France, 15 juillet 1865, nos. 1119,1121-25).  These engravings are noted under their respective engravers in the Table below.
  38. ^ See listings in the Bibliographie de la France, as represented in the database Image of France, under queries for the name “Chardon.”
  39. ^ Bibliographie de la France, 16 déc. 1876, “Estampes“, no. 2438 : Image of France, no. 101668 etc. Copies recorded in Worldcat, OCLC no. 77686995.
  40. ^ Le Musée français (XIII-1805) des tableaux, statues et bas-reliefs qui composent la collection nationale ...Reproduction photographique (livraison spécimen).  Paris, chez J. Laplanche et Cie. (Ancienne maison Vandé-Green).  [1863 – on spine label]  Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des Estampes, V4640 in-fol.
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