by Jon Lackman | 7 March 2008 | Books
Frick curator Colin B. Bailey writes in the February 2008 issue of The Art Newspaper:
The publication–some 25 years in the making–of the two-volume catalogue raisonné of over 1,100 French ornament and architectural drawings at Waddesdon Manor is a publishing event of the first order … In keeping with Waddesdon’s admirable commitment to publishing its various collections in the most scholarly and elegant manner possible, these beautifully designed volumes take their place as the 12th in a series launched in 1967 … One should not underestimate the colossal scholarship involved in cataloguing these architectural and ornamental sheets, in many ways the poor relations of drawings cabinets and print rooms in museums on both sides of the Atlantic … there are dozens of designs by less-well studied makers whose attribution and purpose have to be established ex nihilo.
