Catalogue raisonné des différens objets de curiosités dans les sciences et arts,: qui composoient le cabinet de feu Mr Mariette Controleur général de la Grand Chancellerie de France …

Paris: Chez l'Auteur … et chez G. Desprez, 1775. First edition. 8vo. Engraved title by Moreau le Jeune, engraved frontispiece by Choffard after Cochin fils (bound after title), four etched plates by Basan after Guercino (folding), Perino del Vaga, Guerchin and Carracci. xvi, 418 pp. Contemporary paste-paper boards, rebacked in half calf preserving spine label; light wear and soiling to title One the most important sale catalogues of old master prints and drawings of the 18th century, the collection of art dealer, historian and connoisseur Pierre-Jean Mariette (1694–1774). A copy useful for provenance research with with buyers' names and prices assiduously recorded in a contemporary hand. Mariette prized drawings over paintings as being more expressive of an artist’s true talent and spirit. His collection included over 9,000 drawings — that number inflated by Mariette’s unorthodox practice of splitting sheets with drawings on recto and verso to produce two separate sheets. His collection was encyclopedic and included works by major artists such as Leonardo, Poussin, Raphael, Rembrandt, Rubens, and Titian. Works by Guercino, Perino del Vaga, Guerchin and Carracci are reproduced in etchings by Basan, which Cohen and de Ricci single out for praise. Mariette and his collection were the subject of a 2016 Morgan Library exhibition, Pierre-Jean Mariette and the Art of Collecting Drawings.REFERENCE: Brunet, III, p. 1430; Cicognara 4462; Cohen/de Ricci 115