Review by Choice Review
A greatly improved tool for print scholars, this new edition of Loys Delteil's 1924 catalogue translates all of Delteil's texts into English, updating them with material from all subsequent catalogues on the artist's prints. High-resolution digital reproductions of impressions are clear and show inscriptions and marginal information often cropped out in previous publications. Color plates record Gericault's tinted lithographs and one extant hand-colored impression. Doubtful attributions are given an appendix, and copies often are illustrated within individual entries to help connoisseurs steer clear. The scholarly apparatus includes a helpful list of Gericault's printers, collectors, and other contemporary figures, a historical listing of important events during the artist's lifetime, and indexes of print titles in both French and English. Perhaps best of all, the book reprints the 1879 Charles Clement catalogue raisonne that aided Delteil so greatly; this offers rich descriptive and interpretive material for the prints, although it is for some reason not translated into English. Reprints of articles by James Cuno and Paul Joannides introduce readers to Gericault's significance as an early practitioner of lithography in post-Napoleonic France, and provide a useful chronology for the prints, respectively. Summing Up: Recommended. Primarily researchers and professionals. A. C. Weislogel Cornell University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
