Musées de papier - L'Antiquité en livres 1600-1800

Catalogue published on the occasion of the exhibition Paper Museum, collections of antiquities and antiquarian research in Europe 1650-1780 presented at the Louvre Museum, Paris (September 25, 2010 - January 3, 2011). The extreme fertility of the antiquarian works carried out in the 17th and 18th centuries played a decisive role in the emergence of Neoclassicism. This period is notably marked by the discovery of Egyptian antiquities, a nascent interest in national antiquities, Christian antiquities and the Middle Ages. This work is interested in the printed and graphic media reproducing these antiquities, and in particular the illustrated books, which constitute the most spectacular manifestation of the research carried out at that time. The study of antiquarian research makes it possible to shed new light on a series of questions concerning not only ancient art itself, but also the way in which the history of art and archaeology began to be developed.