CLARAC, Jean-Baptiste, comte de - Lot 134

CLARAC, Jean-Baptiste, comte de [Musée de sculpture antique et moderne, ou description de ce que le Louvre, Musée royal et les Tuileries renferent en statues, bustes, bas-reliefs] [Paris, Victor Texier, 1826-1853] DESCRIPTION DES SCULPTURES DU LOUVRE IN A MOSAIC BINDING SIGNED BY VIVET. EXEMPLAIRE BERALDI, ABDY ET WITTOCK Album in-4 oblong (275 x 353 mm) ILLUSTRATION: 110 plates including 1 fold-out, all from the Musée de sculpture, engraved by Texier, Giboy, Reveil, Normand père and Thierry after Lemaitre, Fremy, Laitié, Féron, Civeton, Bury... SIGNED BINDING BY EDME-THÉODORE VIVET. Long-grained green morocco, broad framing of mosaic rosettes in red morocco, gilded and blind-tooled decoration, title stamped in gilded letters in the center of the upper board, ornate ribbed spine, untrimmed. PROVENANCE : unidentified period ex-dono on endpaper in brown ink "Souvenir d'amitié" -- Henri Beraldi (III, Paris, December 18-24, 1924, no. 75) -- Sir Robert Abdy (bookplate; not included in the catalogs of his 1975 and 1976 sales) -- Michel Wittock (Paris, V, October 24, 2013, no. 92) EXHIBITION : Paul Culot, Relieurs et reliures décorées en France à l'époque romantique : Supplément, Paris, BHVP, 1997, n° 93 bis Marginal brown spots Jean-Baptiste de Clarac (1777-1847) was curator of Antiquities and Modern Sculpture at the Musée du Louvre from 1818 until his death. Returning from emigration under the Consulate, he came to the attention of Joachim Murat, who made him tutor to his children. Clarac was subsequently commissioned to direct the Pompeii excavations. During the Restoration, Jean-Baptiste de Clarac was a member of the Duc de Montmorency-Luxembourg's mission to Brazil in 1816. Alexandre de Humboldt (1769-1859) praised his skills as a draughtsman of the primeval forest and "his sense of detail immanent in the totality of nature". An archaeologist, draughtsman and historian, Jean-Baptiste de Clarac had all the qualities required to become Curator of Antiques at the Louvre. To this end, he wrote a special note on the Venus de Milo, presented by the Duc de Rivière (1763-1828) to Louis XVIII in 1818. It took him more than ten years, between 1820 and 1830, to publish the definitive version of the Description du musée du Louvre, of which the Musée de sculpture antique et moderne is a part. BIBLIOGRAPHY : Louis Franck & Pedro Corrêa do Lago, Le Comte de Clarac et la forêt vierge du Brésil, 2005 -- Vinet, II, n° 1496 -- Fléty, p. 176