Collecting antiquities in eighteenth-century France : Louis XV and Jean-Jacques Barthelemy

Aghion, Irène."Collecting antiquities in eighteenth-century France : Louis XV and Jean-Jacques Barthelemy." Journal of the History of Collections, v 14, n° 2, 2002, p. 193-203.

The writer provides an overview of the way in which archaeological material entered the Cabinet des Medailles et Antiques, now located at the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, during the reign of Louis XV. She explains the roles of Jean-Jacques Barthelemy and the Comte de Caylus in collecting for the Cabinet, which is one of the three or four most important coin cabinets in the world, the second most important French collection of antiquities after the Louvre museum, and the most important collection of engraved gems in the world. She focuses on the changes that took place during the 18th century in mechanisms of acquisition and strategies of collecting, illustrating how antiquarian studies evolved from the sphere of curiosity to a more scientific domain.