La Galerie Electorale De Dusseldorff Ou Catalogue Raisonné Et Figuré De Ses Tableaux Dans Lequel On Donne Une connoissance exacte de cette fameuse Collection, & de son local, par des descriptions détaillées, & par une suite de 30. Planches, contenant 365. petites Estampes refigées & gravées d'après ces mêmes Tableaux, par Chretien de Mechel Graveur de S.A. Monseigneur L'Électeur Palatin & Membre de plusieurs Académies. Ouvrage Composé Dans Un Gout Nouveau, par Nicolas de Pigage de l'Académie de S. Luc à Rome, Associé Correspondant de celle d'Architecture à Paris Premier Architecte Directeur général des Bâtimens & Jardins de S. A. S. E. P.
Estampes Du Catalogue Raisonné Et Figuré Des Tableaux De La Galerie Électorale De Dusseldorff.
Imprint
Avec Privilege De S.A.S.E.P., A Basle,: chez Chretien De Mechel & chez Mrs. les Inspecteurs Des Galeries Electorales a Dusseldorff & a Mannheim., MDCCLXXVIII.
Vol. I: [Half-t., t.p., dedic.] - Préface - Explication Du Frontispice Planche A; Explication Des Peintures ... en Camaïeu de l'Escalier ... Planches D - [Divisional t.p. and text, 'Catalogue ... Premiere Salle ...']; [colophon] - [Divisional t.pp. and texts for Deuxième - Cinquième Salles, with no colophons] - [Divisional t.p. and text of 'Catalogue ... Piéces Nommées Mobiles ...'] - Table Alphabétique Des Peintres Nommés Dans Ce Catalogue; [colophon]. - Vol. II: [T.p.] - [Plates].
Responsibility Note
Plate B is unsigned; all others are signed as engraved under the direction of Ch. de Mechel, except pl. I, which is signed as engraved by him. Plate A carries the name of engraver B. Hübner; plate C, that of P.G. Pintz; plate 22, that of M.G. Eichler. Plate A is signed as drawn by Nics. Guibal, and plate D as painted by G.J. Karsch père. The title-page vignette of Volume I is signed as drawn by Lamine, and each of the six vignettes which decorate the title-pages of the descriptions of the five rooms and the 'tableaux mobiles' is signed as drawn by N. Guibal and engraved under Mechel's direction.
The name of the printer, Jean Schweighauser, is given in the colophon of Volume I (also printed at the end of the description of Room I); which, unusually, also acknowledges the typographer, Guillaume Haas.
The dedication is from Pigage to the Elector Palatine (Carl Theodor).
References
L. Syson, 'The ordering of the artificial world: collecting, classification and progress', in Enlightenment, ed. K. Sloan (2003); A. Scarpa-Sonino, Cabinet d'amateur: le grandi collezioni d'arte nei dipinti dal XVII al XIX secolo (1992); F. Russel, 'The hanging and display of pictures 1700-1850', in The fashioning and functioning of the British country house (1989), p.133-53; J. Cornforth, 'Patterns of picture hanging', in Country life, 169 (1981 June 4), p.1698-9; L.H. Wüthrich, Das Oeuvre des Kupfersteches Christian von Mechel ( 1959); L. H. Wüthrich, Christian von Mechel (1956).
Summary Note
A title variant occurs on the Volume II title-page: 'Estampes Du Catalogue Raisonné Et Figuré Des Tableaux De La Galerie Électorale De Dusseldorff'. The publication-date 1778 is on both title pages. The plates carry the dates 1775 or 1776 (except plate B, undated), and the vignettes are dated 1777.
In his text (Volume I) Pigage describes in detail over three hundred paintings. In Volume II the plates present the gallery in an unusual way. After the allegoric frontispiece and the plan and elevation of the gallery (plates A-C), plates D and 1-26 each show a whole wall of a room, with only a few detailed reproductions. This makes the plates a mere aide-mémoire, but provides a valuable record of the hang of a gallery in the middle of the 18th century. Prevailing custom had been to hang so as to achieve a decorative or aesthetic balance; but in the Dusseldorf gallery we find the pictures separated into a nationalistic scheme - not according to historical style and development but by nationality of painter, as Italian, Dutch, or Flemish. This nationalistic arrangement was repeated by Mechel when he re-ordered the imperial collections at Vienna in 1783. At about the same time other analytic approaches were also being explored (as, for example, in Britain at Holkham and Stourhead, where portraits, landscapes, Old Masters, British art and works on paper were becoming separately grouped).
The collection at Dusseldorf was part of the inheritance of Carl Theodor, Elector Palatine, who was a great enthusiast for the arts and a founder of several academies; in 1777 he became also Elector of Bavaria, and within a few years the collection described here was transferred to Munich.
Provenance
Recorded in RAA Library, Catalogue, 1802.
Binding Note
18th-century half calf, marbled-papered boards; rebacked in 20th century; red morocco spine-labels, lettered, 'Gallerie Electorale De Dusseldorff', the second volume having the spine also lettered, 'Estampes'.
Paintings, European - History
Collections - Art galleries - Exhibiting - Object groupings and systems - Germany - Dusseldorf - 18th century
Catalogues - Switzerland - 18th century
Pictorial works - Switzerland - 18th century