Lettre à un amateur de la peinture avec des éclaircissemens historiques sur un cabinet et les auteurs des tableaux qui le composent

Abstract

First and only edition of Hagedorn’s account of his own collection of pictures and drawings, primarily Dutch and German 17th- and 18th-century works, especially landscapes. Hagedorn’s combined a description of his collection with biographies of 18th-century artists. ‘It remains an important source for art history’ (Grove Dictionary of Art). Hagedorn was helped in writing this book by the Austrian painter Franz Christoph Janneck who contributed some of the biographical information of the various painters mentioned herein. Hagedorn published the work anonymously, and only later revealed his authorship in his Betrachtungen der Mahlerey, published in Leipzig in 1762. Christian Ludwig von Hagedorn started his career in the diplomatic service but left in 1752 to concentrate on his art studies and his art collection. In 1762 he published is Betrachtungen über die Mahlerey, which made his name and is regarded as a precursor to romantic aesthetics in Germany. Two years later he was appointed director of the art gallery in Dresden, Leipzig and Meissen. Later he was also appointed director of the Saxonian Academy of Arts and Collections. (Bogoslav Winner cat. 4 (2016) # 18) Cicognara 1162; Schlosser-Magnino p. 677; Barbier II, 1117.