Art and art history

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• Gathering information about art

Art and art history: gathering information about art

The François Mitterrand Library (Site François-Mitterrand) includes two rooms dedicated to art in the Art and Literature Department. The departments located at the Richelieu Library (Site Richelieu) and the Arsenal Library (Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal) also own collections of books and journals related to their collections of works of art.

At the François Mitterrand Library, art history by civilization and country, sculpture, ceramics, metallic arts, drawing, decorative arts, painting, engraving, and photography are represented in both the Reference library and the Research library.

The emphasis in the Reference library is on contemporary art, with most material in French.

Among other things, the Research library holds all catalogues raisonnés of artists.

Research tools are also available, such as art market price lists.

These collections also include noteworthy collections:

• publications relating to art shows from the 17th century onwards (e.g. the Salon Officiel)
• catalogs from sales of objets d’art
• 19th and 20th century art journals
• fashion journals
• exhibition and museum catalogs
• monographs and biographies of artists
• material on the history of monuments

In particular, the collections held by departments based in the Richelieu Library contain catalogs from art sales, many of which are annotated, and specific collections built up by collectors, such as the Deloynes collection.

They also include handwritten documents:

• artists’ papers (handwritten notes, correspondence, drawings, etc.)
• collectors’ archives (collections belonging to Auguste Mariette, the Count of Caylus, Prost, Moreau-Nélaton, Seymour de Ricci, etc.)
• studies of art in handwritten form