Author: BURTIN François Xavier de :
Title: Traité Théorique et Pratique des connaissances qui sont nécessaire à tout amateur de tableaux....suivi d'observations sur les collections publiques et particulières qui existaient en 1808, et de la description des tableaux qui formaient la galerie de l'auteur. 2e édition.
Description: .: Valenciennes, Lemaitre, 1846, 2e edition (second edition), in-8°, lithographed portrait frontispiece + viii pp + 569 pp, index, sewn, original printed wrapper, uncut copy, fine. Rare second edition printed in an unspecified small number. The first edition was published in Brussels in 1808 in two volumes. The author (Maastricht 1743-1818) chose a medical career and became a member of the Académie de Bruxelles. In this long study he deals with the formation of a painting collection and its technical aspects such as cleaning , restoration , safeguarding against deterioration etc. He also discusses the merits of different schools of paintings and e.g. the system that '' de Piles'' had devised to judge the quality of paintings. He was one of the first to rehabilitate the 17th century Dutch School of painting which was all but forgotten in the 18th century. (See Éveline Koolhaas-Grosfeld in Septentrion 1987 issue 3, pp 29-39). .

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