Although I strive to acquire only impressions of the highest quality, I have no qualms about adding to my collection sheets that bear the marks of age or imperfect condition. Such works possess a history of their own. On the versos of some of them, previous collectors have left their collector’s marks. Among these successive owners are prominent figures. Evidently, they too were willing to look beyond such imperfections.

From this emerge two guiding principles and a question: first, that an impression should provide the eye with the full aura of a beautiful print; and second, that the sheet should have passed through a collection whose history can be traced and investigated—a task made remarkably straightforward today by the extraordinary online catalogue of the Fondation Custodia.

This, in turn, raises a broader question: according to what criteria did earlier collectors form their collections, and how might an understanding of those criteria inform the making of a collection today?