Fine copy of the catalogue of Hamilton’s second vase collection, gathered after selling the first to the British Museum in 1772, edited and illustrated by the German painter Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein (1751-1829), then director of the Naples Academy of Painting, assisted by the Russian ambassador at Naples, Andrei Yakovlevich Italinsky (1743-1827). This set includes the scarce “fourth volume”, a series of sixty-one plates without text, conceived before Hamilton’s forced departure from Naples (December 1798), but published afterwards, by Tischbein alone.
A finely-bound copy of Millin’s catalogue of about 120 vases, for the most part in private Parisian collections. The 150 large plates reproduce outline drawings of the designs on the vases. Millin’s draughtsman was Angelo Cléner, the pupil or associate of J.H.W. Tischbein, who had collaborated with Tischbein in the second Hamilton publication; some of the plates may be Cléner’s copies of unpublished plates for that publication.
Paris, De l’imprimerie de Didot l’ainé (volume II: Imprimerie de Jules Didot Ainé), 1813 [-1829]
Magnificent catalogue of a selection of ancient vases in the vast collection belonging to the Austrian diplomat Anton Franz de Paula, Graf von Lamberg-Sprinzenstein (1740-1822). Formed substantially in Naples, during Count Lamberg's term as envoy (17 December 1778-15 November 1784), and augmented after his return to Vienna, the collection grew to comprise more than 700 vases. In 1815, in a move to forestall an intended sale of the collection to Ludwig von Bayern, some 670 vases were acquired for the imperial museums by Franz I, Emperor of Austria, in return for 125,000 Guilders (the vases were afterwards incorporated in the Kunsthistorisches Museum). The work appeared in eighteen livraisons; subscribers could choose between copies printed on papier vélin (as here), or copies on the same paper, but with the plates avant la lettre. The plates in all copies are aquatints printed in colour, using mainly black and ochre together with mauve, brown or grey. The first plate is a general view of the collection, engraved by Benedikt Piringer (1780-1826) after a watercolour executed in 1791 by Carl Schütz. One of the title-prints is indistinctly signed Dien (presumably Claude Marie François Dien, 1773-1842); the other plates and vignettes are unsigned.
First edition of an important catalogue of vases belonging to the author or in private collections, including that of Carolina Murat, queen of Naples. Sixty numbered plates depict in outline ancient Greek vase paintings of myths and three plates (lettered A-C) show the variety of shapes of vases. The vases are classified according to period (following Winckelmann’s broad divisions) and reproduced with unprecedented care and fidelity; they “are the first [prints] on which missing and restored portions are indicated” (Dietrich von Bothmer). The unsigned plates are credited in the text to the draughtsman Michele Steurnal (Steurnel), a porcelain painter at the Real Fabbrica in Naples, and the prolific reproductive engraver Francesco Giangiacomo.
Rare hand-coloured issue of a lavish catalogue of Greek vases, selected from more than twenty collections, including some already dispersed, such as those of Sir William Hamilton (1772, 1801) and Anton Franz de Paula, Graf von Lamberg-Sprinzenstein (1815). The majority of the vases, however, came onto the market during the long course of publication, as the collections formed by Joseph-François Tochon d’Annecy (1818), Sir John Thomas Coghill, Bt (1819), Jean Philippe Guy Le Gentil, comte de Paroy (1824), Joséphine de Beauharnais at Malmaison (1824), and Edmé Antoine Durand (1825, 1836) were scattered. Many vases are identifiable in permanent collections, in Berlin, Boston, Cambridge, Liverpool, London, Los Angeles, Munich, Naples, New York, Oxford, Paris, Philadelphia, Providence, Vienna, and elsewhere.
Only edition of the catalogue of a collection of vases belonging to Sir John Thomas Coghill, Bt (1766-1817), mostly acquired from the antiquary Giovanni Gherardo de Rossi (1754-1827), who was dispersing collections assembled by the banker Francesco Lalò, treasurer to Carolina Murat, Queen of Naples, and the Neapolitan collector “M. Bonnet”. De Rossi had intended to publish a catalogue of the Lalò vases and thirty-nine outline engravings already had been made of the most interesting vases. Those plates are employed here, together with thirteen new plates of Coghill’s other acquisitions. The Coghill vases were sold in London by Christie’s in June 1819, when many passed into the hands of the collectors Henry Englefield, Thomas Hope, and Richard Payne Knight.
London, [printed for the author at Paris by Firmin Didot], 1822-1826
Only edition of an ambitious work, dedicated to the memory of Sir William Hamilton, which aims to describe all manner of ancient “monuments” – vases, marbles, bronzes, coins, gems, etc. – then unpublished, or else inaccurately published, or susceptible of new explanations and observation.
Paris, Imprimé par Autorisation du Roi, du 11 Décembre 1827, A l’Imprimerie Royale, [1828-1833]
Only edition of an ambitious monograph on Greek mythology in art, divided into three sections, treating respectively Achilles, Odysseus, and Orestes, followed by an appendix, additions and corrections. Many well-known antiquities are discussed, often controversially, such as the Ludovisi Mars, the Mattei bas-relief of Thetis and Peleus, and the Barberini (Portland) vase. The author’s desire to present “unpublished” objects is realised through the reproduction of a large number of vases in the collections of Edmé-Antoine Durand, the Comte de Pourtalès-Gorgier, and Thomas Hope. Many of these vases can be traced to permanent collections, in Brussels, Cambridge, London, Naples, New York, and Paris.
Only edition of a work presenting nine vases and a bronze cista, examined by Gerhard in 1825-1826 in the collections of the Neapolitan dealer Onofrio Pacileo, Marchese Niccola Santangelo, Pietro Luigi Moschini, “Chevalier Lamberti” (perhaps the dealer Carlo Lamberti), and Franz Freiherr von Koller. According to the author’s Préface, the plates were produced from his own drawings in 1827-1828, as a supplement to his series Antike Bildwerke (1827-1844), where eventually descriptive text appeared.