What may the collectors’ marks found on the prints now in my collection still teach us?

I have already approached this question from the perspective of the intrinsic qualities of the print and of its defects. From that standpoint, the worst possible fate for a collector would no doubt be for Lugt to identify his mark and judge that he had shown, throughout his life, little discernment in the choice of his sheets. I recall reading such a sentence about a collector whose name I failed to note: the verdict was brief, but as severe as it was final.

Rather than speculate on the judgment that some distant future may one day pass upon my own years of collecting, I preferred to reverse the question. I sought instead to assess the traces of quality left by those collectors who preceded me in the possession of the prints now gathered here.

What, then, do these marks from the past reveal about the collection in the present?

To answer this question, I systematically identified the marks represented in the collection, relying, of course, on the standard reference catalogue compiled by Lugt. I then attempted to relate the quality of the sheets, the presence or absence of a watermark, and the esteem in which Lugt held the identified collectors.

A first observation emerges. In general, prints bearing collectors’ marks are often devoid of watermarks. The material sign that ordinarily reassures the collector as to the origin and antiquity of an impression is here replaced by the authority of a judgment already rendered by acknowledged connoisseurs.

The collectors’ mark thus substitutes, to some extent, for the full range of indicators that would today allow one to reconsider afresh the origin or date of an impression.

Conversely, many other prints in the collection, though bearing watermarks and sometimes ranking among the rarest, carry no celebrated mark. Their origins were more discreet, perhaps more humble, yet their own signs spoke sufficiently for themselves. Even so, they have reached us incognito. They passed through the centuries without anyone pausing long enough to bestow upon them the dignity of a mark.

Place and Dignity

Taken together, these signs suggest not a cabinet of first-rank perfection, but a collection shaped by margins, survivals, and exceptions. Certainly, some sheets are of extreme rarity; others of extraordinary quality. Yet almost always some reservation attaches to them: a defect that required restoration, a concession that had to be accepted, an insufficiency that had to be overlooked.

Every collection is a compromise.

To attain perfect taste would require other means, other budgets. Yet even that would not suffice. The collector lives in expectation, perpetually on alert, scrutinising every opportunity for the decisive chance: the one that appears only once and may change everything.

And indeed, many prints rediscovered today were overlooked by the chain of collectors who came before.

Thus an impression of a major plate by Claude Lorrain, printed during the artist’s lifetime, was sold to me as a McCreery impression of the early nineteenth century. A chiaroscuro woodcut dismissed by bidders because of tears required only to be looked at anew. So too Parmigianino’s Entombment, for which a light restoration restored the missing upper margin, despite the sheet’s exceptional importance in the history of the Renaissance, on the eve of the world shaped by Raphael’s death and the Sack of Rome.

Each time, the old drama of discovering a treasure is played again: a print described as a copy, deemed mediocre, or left in obscurity suddenly recovers, once rescued from anonymity, its place and its dignity.

When I question the meaning of accumulating these long-neglected sheets, it is to this act of restitution that I return to steady my doubt.

To restore place and dignity to what had been forgotten: perhaps that is achievement enough.

Work in progress

Auteur	Titre	Date	Marque de collection	Condition générale	Filigrane	État	Commentaire
G.A. da Brescia	Les Sénateurs	c. 1500	L.617 (Antonio Cesare Poggi, Londres, fin 18e – c. 1836)	Correcte, déchirures, amincissements	–		Excessivement rare
H. Hopfer	Bataille d’hommes nus	avant 1563	L.567 (collection des ducs d’Arenberg)	Superbe, pleines marges	–
M. Raimondi	Il Morbetto	1515	L. 5253 (Philippe Hanus, 1951, France)	Très endommagé, nombreuses restaurations successives	–		Rare
M. Dente	Nymphe portée par un triton	1512-1513	L. 4431 (collection française de la seconde moitié du XVIe siècle)	Superbe	–		publiée par Salamanca et Lafreri entre 1553 et 1563
F. Mazzola	La mise au tombeau	1527	L.739 (collection Defer-Dumesnil, Paris, 19e siècle: Pierre Defer 1798-1870; Henri Dumesnil 1823-1898)	Superbe, mais quelques restaurations, manque restauré de 1,5 cm sur la partie supérieure	–	ii/ii	Très rare
Rembrandt	Le Christ disputant les docteurs de la loi	1630	L.1257e et L.1257d (cabinet des estampes du musée du Land de Hesse, Darmstadt)	Superbe	–	iv-v/viii	Rare
N. Moeyaert	Le songe de Jacob	1630	L. 1966 (timbre sec du Prince Nicolas Esterhàzy, 1765-1833, Vienne)	Très belle	–	i/ii	Très rare
B. Biscaïno	Moïse sauvé des eaux	c. 1650	L. 2650 (William Sharp, Manchester, milieu du XIXe siècle)	Très belle	–	ii/viii
G. Dughet	Paysage en largeur no. 2	c. 1640	Lugt 1937 (« à Paris chez Naudet md d’estampes au Louvre 1806 »)	Très belle	–	ii/ii	Rare
P. de Laer	Femme assise	c. 1630	L. 2064 (L. Puttrich?, 1783-1856).	Très belle impression mais manques et restaurations	–	unique	Rare
P. de Laer	Paysage avec deux arbres	c. 1630	L.2071 (P. Burty, Paris, 1830-1890)	Très belle, petites marges	–	i/ii	Rare
B. Breenbergh	La maison délabrée	c. 1640	L.3183 (J. Wetterauer, Stuttgart)	Très belle impression, barbes, mais quelques plis	–	unique	Rare
B. Breenbergh	La Villa de l’Empereur	c. 1640	L.700a (Musée Boijmans van Benningen de Rotterdam); L.356b (Musée Boijmans van Benningen, don de A.J. Domela Nieuwenhuis en 1923)	Très belle impression, mais plis et amincissements, restaurations	–	i/ii	Rare
J. van Noordt	Paysage avec des animaux et une laitière	1644	L. 2200 (cachet sec de Robert-Dumesnil, 1778-1864, auteur du Peintre-graveur français).	Très belle, uniformément insolée	Folie	i/ii	Rare
T. Wijck	L’homme ajustant sa chaussure	c. 1650	Collection G. Denzel (Munich), pas dans Lugt	Correcte	–
T. Wijck	La fileuse et le forgeron	c. 1650	L. 787 (Dr. A. Sträter, 1810-1897); L. 847a, L. 919 ter (E. Fabricius, † c. 1920); L. 1403b (J.H. Juriaanse, 1866-1940).	Excellente	contremarque
T. Wijck	La tour ronde	c. 1650	L. 2675 (C. von Zephraovitch, major d’armée, Vienne, seconde moitié du XIXe siècle); L. 1626a (J. Kuderna, marchand d’art à Vienne, début du XXe siècle).	Très belle		iii/iv
T. Wijck	Le puits	c. 1650	L. 3974 (K. Herweg, 1914-2002).	Taches et amincissements	–	iii/iv
T. Wijck	Une fileuse et un pêcheur	c. 1650	L.4731 (Pieter van Doorne, Amsterdam 1896-1971)	Superbe	–
J. Both	Les deux vaches	c. 1640	L. 88 (A. Camesina, 1806-1881, graveur à Vienne) et L. 1105b (F. Goldstein, né en 1888, Vienne).	Superbe, restauration du coin inférieur	Fleur de Lys couronnée dans un écusson	iii/vi
N. Berchem	La vache qui pisse	c. 1650	L1293 (Hieronymus von Bayern, Munich, 1792-1876); L.2926 (Rudolf P. Goldschmidt, Berlin, 1840-1914)	Superbe		ii/v