In the specialised field of Old Master drawings, the 18th century Frenchman Pierre-Jean Mariette (1694–1774) is a name that rivals Giorgio Vasari as a founder of the modern understanding and appreciation of drawings. Drawings from Mariette’s collection, in their characteristic blue mount with an attribution in a cartouche at the bottom, are highly treasured, and over recent years there have been a number of exhibitions in prestigious institutions that highlight his contribution, which have given a sense of the man as well as his collection.
Mariette and the Science of the Connoisseur in 18th Century Europe by Kristel Smentek presents us with a fuller view of Mariette and his activities in the 18th century, making it clear that he operated on a multitude of levels within the specialised and hierarchal world of 18th century France.
Mariette was a fourth-generation dealer in prints and drawings, whose father, grandfather and great-grandfather had been active in not just selling prints but also creating them via the ownership of original printing blocks. As one contemporary noted, the process of collecting gave one access to higher social and intellectual circles, rigorously controlled in the 18th century, and Mariette himself would have seen his great achievement as moving from the class of tradesmen, motivated by money – he was received as a printer in 1722 – to a member of the learned and leisured classes, exemplified in 1750 when he sold his printing business and was elected an honorary associate of the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture.
As Smentek makes clear, in the first half of Mariette’s career his knowledge of Old Master prints made him renowned across Europe, leading him to form the print collections of Prince Eugene of Savoy and King John of Portugal (sadly lost in the earthquake of 1755). These were divided into artists and schools as much as subject, apparently an innovation of Mariette himself, his notes subsequently becoming the basis of Adam Bartsch’s great comprehensive work on Old Master prints Le Peintre Graveur (1821).
For many, the fascination of Mariette lies in how active he was in the field collecting and cataloguing of Old Master drawings. His great “break” was possibly the cataloguing of the collection of drawing of Pierre Crozat, which was then uncatalogued and unsorted. Mariette will probably always be remembered for his Recueils (published illustrated collections) and sale catalogues, with comments on the style and technique of the artist that still resonate today.
This book is a mine of interesting information that moves seamlessly from the economics of the 18th century print and publishing trade to the development of connoisseurship and individual attribution in the 18th century. All the issues are intelligently handled and discussed, though one wonders if (in drawings) we have quite the same interest in the “finished” picture effect that Mariette and his colleagues had, even to the extent of chopping up sketches and reassembling them to create an apparent complete picture?
More sympathetic was his desire for works by artists whom he knew were second rate but included for the sake of a full representation; however, collectors and conservators would be put out by his predeliction for splitting (effectively tearing) drawings recto and verso into two. A peculiarity that English readers might enjoy is that the family moved eventually to England, and the family papers are held not in France but in Exeter University Library.
Mariette and the Science of the Connoisseur in 18th Century Europe
Kristel Smentek
Asghate, 342pp, £70, $120 (hb)
Howard Coutts is a curator at the Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle, County Durham. His interests include decorative arts and Old Master drawings. He is the author of The Art of Ceramics: European Ceramic Design and Decoration 1500-1830 (2001).