Author: BASAN (Pierre François)
Title: Collection de Cent-Vingt Estampes, Gravées d'après les tableaux & dessins qui composoient le cabinet de M. Poullain, Receveur Général des Domaines du Rio, décédé en 1780; Précédée d'un Abrégé historique de la Vie des Auteurs qui la composent; Dédiée a M. le Comte d'Orsay....
Description: Paris: Basan et Poignant, 1781. First edition, 4to (290 x 210 mm), [6], 22pp., Dawson Turner's Copy, 120 engravings on 116 sheets (complete), engraved title as plate one, 4 sheets having of two engravings, some occasional browning and spotting to plates, finely bound in contemporary full green morocco, lightly faded, joints rubbed, boards and spine decorated in gilt and blind, five double-raised bands, all edges gilt, a very handsome volume. The catalogue is dedicated to the art collection of Antoine Poullain, French art collector. It includes 120 engravings after paintings by Old Masters, from the collection of Poullain, among them Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony van Dyck, Claude Lorrain, Gerrit Dou and many others, accompanied by short biographies of the artists. The engravings were engraved by different artists under the direction of the French engraver Pierre François Basan. The collection of Antoine Poullain, documented in this catalogue, was sold at auction in Paris after his death in 1780. Many masterpieces from his collection are now in prominent museum collections. Provenance: From the library of Dawson Turner sold as lot 692, at the auction of his library on 9th March 1853, signed a dated by him on front fly-leaf, along with three notations: the first relating to the auction of the collection in 1780; the next concerns a Rembrandt from the collection being re-sold in London in 1814; and the third noting that plate 61 is included on plate 20 "This requires to be observed, or the book may be supposed incomplete". Later in the library of Charles Butler (1821-1910), Warren Wood in Hatfield, Hertfordshire, armorial bookplate to front paste-down. Brunet I, 686; Cohen-De Ricci, 116.

Keywords: FINE ARTS PLATE BOOKS NORFOLK DAWSON TURNER PICTURE COLLECTIONS OLD MASTERS