Du musée d'images au musée imaginaire: Les recueils d'antiquités et la tradition des musées de papier aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles.

Antiquarians in the 17^th and 18^th centuries compiled ample bodies of graphic reproductions of Antique works of art. These albums assumed diverse forms — collections essentially composed of drawings on the model of Cassiano dal Pozzo's Museo Cartaceo in the first half of the 17^th century or series of engravings with commentaries, bound as books, on the model of Bernard de Montfaucon's Antiquité Expliquée et Représentée en Figures, 1719-1725. While these collections share a number of characteristics with the museum, the particular nature of their common support — the images of antique objects, and not the objects themselves — links them to a specific sort of museum that could be called “imaginary" for more than one reason. In the very vast ensemble of questions raised by these paper museums, this study will concentrate on one examination in particular. To what measure did the images of Antique art contained in the albums of Antiquities contribute to the birth of a particular form of art history, namely art history through images that preceded by several decades art history by narration that develops at the end of the 18^th century, following particularly Winckelmann's work on the history of Antique art? What link exists between these two forms of history? Do they maintain a relation of model to counter-model as suggested by certain representatives of “modern" art history, with Winckelmann himself in the front line? Or are they tied to each other, despite disclaimers, by a hidden connection of affiliation? This study attempts to find several elements in response to these questions, by examining some of the paper museums, which, in the 17^th and 18^th centuries, took Antique art as their object. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]