History of the Cabinet des Estampes of the Bibliothèque Nationale

The Cabinet des Estampes: A History of Its Origins and Successive Developments

Established in 1666 on the initiative of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, the Cabinet des Estampes was instituted by Louis XIV to complement the historical collections of the Royal Library. This article traces its development through a series of major acquisitions, from the foundational collection of the Abbé de Marolles to the invaluable additions from collectors such as Gaignières, Beringhen, Mariette, and Debois. These successive enrichments have established it as one of the foremost print rooms in Europe, housing a vast repository of engravings, drawings, and lithographs essential to the study of art history.

The Cabinet des Estampes, the French national print collection, does not have an ancient origin. This invaluable repository was established in 1666, when Louis XIV, acting on a proposal from his chief minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert, acquired an initial collection of engraved works for the State. The king understood the value of adding a print cabinet to the already considerable treasures of the Royal Library, viewing it as an indispensable complement to a historical collection.

Alongside the books that record history’s most memorable and most hidden events, the print is often necessary to show the eye what the volume teaches the mind; it confirms and clarifies the narrative. The best description of a particular event or the defining circumstances of a battle cannot be fully understood without knowing the landscape where the combat took place or the event transpired. How can one explain the causes of a victory or a defeat without placing a detailed map or an accurate view of the battlefield before the reader? And of what help, in studying a person’s character, can be the very image of the man, the expression of his face, the outward signs of his temperament?

Furthermore, is not the history of art, which prints allow one to grasp at a single glance, a subject of sufficient interest? When placed beside books on aesthetics or artist biographies, is it not more reliable to find the very works the text discusses, or at least faithful reproductions of them? The utility of the Cabinet des Estampes is, in any case, too universally recognized to require further insistence on its advantages. No one disputes that a collection so interesting on so many counts has its rightful place in the institution to which Louis XIV joined it from its inception.

The Founding Collections

The first foundational acquisition for the department was the collection of Michel de Marolles, Abbé of Villeloin. The Abbé de Marolles assembled two distinct collections of prints, for which catalogues were printed in 1666 and 1672; only the first was acquired by the king, and it served as the initial core of the present-day print department. This collection, which had been enriched with pieces from the cabinets of Claude Maugis (Abbé of Saint-Ambroise), Charles Delorme, and the Sieur Kerver, was further expanded by partial acquisitions made by Marolles himself after he became its owner. It contained the rarest and most precious prints of the era.

Portrait of Michel de Marolles — A portrait of Michel de Marolles, Abbé of Villeloin, whose print collection formed the initial core of the Cabinet des Estampes described above.

The famous Pax of Florence engraved by Maso Finiguerra, almost all the works of the early masters, and a series of nielli—more numerous in Paris than in any other European cabinet—all originate from the Abbé de Marolles's collection. This acquisition was made with prudence, and the owner himself took care to inform us of the reasons that led him to part with the prints he had gathered.

In the preface to his 1666 catalogue, the Abbé de Marolles proposed his collection to the king in terms that were indirect in form but explicit enough to be perfectly understood:

Notes

¹ In wanting to provide a specimen of the beautiful and precious prints possessed by the Imperial Library of Paris, we have sought, from the infinite number of outstanding pieces preserved there, plates that had not yet been reproduced anywhere. The Italian school is thus represented by a small niello, a *Muse*, described by M. Duchesne aîné, and by the *Combat of Two Centaurs*, an almost unobtainable print by Antonio Pollaiuolo; the Master of 1466, with one of his most beautiful pieces, *Saint Veronica*, personifies the school from across the Rhine; finally, a landscape by Francisque Millet, *The Traveler*, and a charming figure by Callot, give a good sense of the character of our French school, an school often grandiose and always witty. ↑

² While our contributor was writing these lines, the wish he expressed was being realized. On the report of a commission appointed ad hoc, the Minister of Public Instruction sent a skilled and conscientious artist, M. Frappaz, to Oxford to copy in facsimile the innumerable drawings in the Bodleian Library, contained in the sixteen volumes that belonged to the Gaignières collection. ↑

³ Examples of this kind are fortunately not rare in France, and the Library can cite a similar gift made to it by M. His de La Salle. The splendid portrait of Bossuet, engraved by P. Drevet after H. Rigaud, in exceptional condition, had been acquired at a very high price by this amateur. As soon as M. de La Salle learned that the Library did not possess it in the same state, he generously parted with it in favor of this establishment. Dr. Jecker had devoted himself to acquiring, at sales, the rare and curious prints that did not exist at the Library: upon his death, he bequeathed his entire collection to the print department. ↑

⁴ I beg our contributor's pardon, but it seems to me difficult, in the matter of translation by lithography, to place men such as Sudre or Mouilleron in the second rank. Aubry-Lecomte was undoubtedly an exquisite lithographer, but only when he translated Prud'hon. — Ch. B. ↑

The Cabinet des Estampes: A History of Its Origins and Successive Developments

The Founding Collections

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