sehepunkte 5 (2005), Nr. 4

Heinz Widauer (Bearb.): Die französischen Zeichnungen der Albertina

This is the second, substantial volume in a series of catalogues of French drawings in the Albertina. It is a remarkable indication of the size and range of the Vienna collection that the latest volume brings the number of French drawings published in both volumes to over 1200 but ends with artists born before 1700 leaving the whole of the eighteenth century for a future publication. The first volume, written by Eckhart Knab and Heinz Widauer, was published by the Albertina in 1993. It contained far fewer drawings than the present volume but because most of the drawings were reproduced full page it was also twice the size and weight of its companion. The abandoning of this policy in the second volume has lead to an inevitable loss of quality and clarity in the illustrations although a block of sixty-five good colour plates goes some way to compensating. And it is undoubtedly easier to handle than its unwieldy predecessor. The first volume, which includes choice works by Callot, La Hyre, Lebrun, Claude, Poussin and Vouet, contains more drawings by classic artists than the present volume. There are fine drawings by Rivalz, La Fosse, Watteau, Rigaud and others but a good part of the interest in the second catalogue lies in the extraordinarily rich groups of works by artists whose drawings have not been well studied and who are not to be found to any great extent in collections formed later than the Albertina. The works in Vienna by the print-makers, François Chauveau, Nicolas Bazin, Sebastien Leclerc and Bernard Picart, constitute groups of fundamental importance for the study of their drawings. Printmakers' drawings appealed to eighteenth-century collectors more than they do nowadays. The range of work by Chauveau and Leclerc, in particular, has never been so clearly brought to light.

Widauer's introduction provides a clear account of the formation of the collection of the later 17th-century French drawings most of which were acquired by Albert von Sachsen-Teschen. It is instructive to note the differences between the drawings collected by Albert and those which came from the collection of Prince Eugen which notably include the early costume studies attributed to Leclerc and most of the works from Bazin's studio. Eugen's drawings are typical of the kind of work which was chiefly acquired in the seventeenth century for the sake of the imagery while Albert's interests seem to have been more art-historical. The shift from the age of Gaignières to the age of Adam Bartsch is very marked.

Few of Albert's drawings in this catalogue have a known history before they entered his collection apart from those which came from the collections of Charles de Ligne and Gottfried Win[c]kler. In a particularly neat piece of provenance research, Widauer has traced many of the drawings by Leclerc to the collection of Antoine-Joseph Dezallier d'Argenville (not Joseph-Antoine as he appears here) from whom they passed to Marie-Anne-Catherine Bigot de Graveron (Mme de Bandeville) and then to Moriz von Fries. These were not acquired by Albert but were added to the collection in the Imperial Library in 1828. It would have helped the reader to follow the history of the collection as a whole, if the catalogue had included an index of previous owners. Once the series has reached its final volume, some thought might be given to inserting a provenance index covering all the drawings of the French School.

The absence of bibliographical reference in many of the entries gives some indication of the task facing Widauer. This is perhaps the least known part of the collection of French drawings in the Albertina. In a collection of this age formed from large groups of drawings attributed to a few artists, the presence of many misattributions and copies is inevitable. Widauer has carefully divided these large groups into those which he attributes to the artist in question, those which he has placed among the followers and copyists and those which are cautiously ascribed. It is difficult to assess the finer shades of attribution from the illustrations in the catalogue and no doubt there will be some adjustments as the collection becomes better known.[1] But Widauer's judgement and scholarship are evident throughout. The new catalogue is both informative and authoritative and marks a major step in the rediscovery of French art in the period between Lebrun and Boucher which has been gathering strength, particularly in France, over the past thirty years.

Note:

[1] Among the drawings attributed to Mignard, F431 seems too coarse to be by him and F912 and 913, rightly removed from the work of Verdier, are, at least, close to Louis Cheron.