Catalogue Raisonné de Toutes les Estampes qui Forment l'oeuvre de Lucas de Leyde

Vienna: J V Degen, 1798. First Edition. Later marbled paper over boards.. Very good.. 8vo, xviii, 124, [10] pp.

Bartsch was the son of a court official of Prince Starhemberg of Austria. He studied academic subjects at the University in Vienna and then drawing and engraving at Viennese Academy of Arts (Kupferstecherakademie) under Jacob Schmuzer (1733-1811). From 1777-1781 he worked in the Imperial Library, cataloging books. Between 1783-4 he was sent to Paris with the print collection's registrar, Paul Strattmann. Returning to Vienna, Bartsch received his first commission for a catalogue raisonné of prints, that of the collection of Charles Antoine Joseph, Prince de Ligne (1759-1792). In it Bartsch set out the organizing principles of what would be his famous later work, Le Peintre graveur. In 1791 he was appointed curator of the imperial print collection by its director, Gottfried, Baron van Swieten (1734-1803). The Imperial collection expanded nearly 20-fold under his direction. Bartsch was elected to the Viennese Academy of Fine Arts in 1792. In 1794 was named adviser to Albert, Duke of Saxe-Teschen, on his drawings collection. In 1795 Bartsch embarked upon a series of artist's oeuvre catalogs, beginning with the prints of Antoni Waterloo (1610-1690). Catalogs of the prints of Guido Reni and his pupils, (1795), Rembrandt (1797) and Lucas van Leyden (1798, offered here).