The BnF

Prints and Photographs Department

The big horse. Albrecht Dürer's print. 1505

The Prints and Photographs Department holds the world’s biggest picture collection, unique for its wealth of material on past centuries, and a living museum of contemporary art. It houses more than 15 million graphic materials of a wide variety of types: drawings – in particular of architecture -, prints, photographs, posters, labels, postcards, fabric samples, playing cards, etc.
The Department also holds an important collection of documentary sources in the field: books, periodicals, sale catalogues...
Numerous exhibitions are organized to highlight the collections. A wide range of news about old and contemporary engravings is collected and disseminated in the Nouvelles de l’Estampe magazine published by the Department.

Collections
Catalogs
Practical information

Prints and Photographs department:Practical information

Durant la seconde partie du chantier de rénovation du site Richelieu, le département accueille ses lecteurs dans la salle Labrouste (salle de lecture de la bibliothèque de l’INHA).

Address
Opening hours
Communication of documents and consultation procedures

Address

Richelieu Library
58, rue de Richelieu
75002 Paris
Phone: 33 (0)1 53 79 83 80
E-mail: estampes-photographie@bnf.fr

For more info

Address and transports - Richelieu-Louvois Library

To be noted

You need a reader's card to have access to the Research Library's documents.

See

Research Libraries: admission and reader’s cards rates

Opening hours

Reading room of the Prints and Photographs department

Reading room opening hours
From Monday to Saturday	Sunday
10.00am-6.00pm	closed

Area for consultation of the 'Réserve' documents: on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Readers are highly recommended to prepare their visit sending an email to: reserve-estampes-photographie@bnf.fr

Large size documents are communicated on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday afternoon from 14 p.m. to 17 p.m., only on prior appointment by email.

Closed on public holidays:

1st of January
Easter Sunday and Monday
1 and 8 May
Ascension Thursday
Pentecost Sunday and Monday
14 July
15 August
1 and 11 November
25 December

Annual closing of the BnF sites located in Paris (François-Mitterrand, Richelieu and Louvois, Arsenal and Opéra Libraries): During the annual closing of the BnF, various operations are achieved on the BnF premises and public spaces: repair, maintenance or cleaning work. Each year, the sites mentioned above are closed about ten days from the end of August to the beginning of September. The 2018 closing dates will be announced later.

Communication of documents and consultation procedures

These specific opening hours concern the documents housed at the Richelieu Library.

Communication of documents
	Monday to Saturday (General collections)	On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday morning (Réserve)
Gathering of communication bulletins	10.30 a.m., 11.15 a.m., noon, 12.45 p.m., 1.15 p.m., 2.00 p.m., 2.45 p.m., 3.30 p.m., 4.15 p.m., 5 p.m.	10 a.m, 10.15 a.m. 10.45 a.m., 11.15 a.m., 11.50 a.m.
Communication of documents	10.30 a.m. to 5.30 p.m.	10.15 a.m. to 12.30 p.m.

Large size documents are communicated on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday afternoon from 14 p.m. to 17 p.m., only on prior appointment by email.

From September the 11th, 2017, it will be possible to request documents for the current day clicking on « Réserver ». The request can be made only via the computers available in the reading room.

For more info

Reservation of documents - Arsenal, Richelieu, Louvois, Opera Libraries

Considering that these documents belong to heritage collections, special precautions should be taken to ensure their good condition. The readers are invited to handle the documents carefully. It is forbidden to use some ink. Personal belongings must be left in cloakrooms.

During renovation work at Richelieu Library, some collections were moved to other sites of the BnF. These documents remain available.

Download

La liste des documents en communication différée au département des Estampes et de la photographie [fichier .pdf – 45 Ko – 14/12/16 – 2 p.]

See

Consulting documents at Richelieu Library

Friday, November 10, 2017