An illustrated exploration of the largely unpublished collection of eighteenth-century French drawings, albums, and sketchbooks at the Bibliotheque nationale de France Promenades on Paper explores the largely unmined collection of eighteenth-century drawings held in the Department of Prints and Photography of the Bibliotheque nationale de France. Among the 50 featured artists are some of France's most celebrated eighteenth-century practitioners, including Madeleine Basseporte (1701-1780), Francois Boucher (1703-1770), Gabriel de Saint Aubin (1724-1780), and Jean-Honore Fragonard (1732-1806), alongside architects, designers, and printmakers. Scattered across the institution's vast reserves, these drawings have until now served primarily documentary purposes. In this book, leading international scholars introduce more than 80 drawings, albums, and sketchbooks-many published here for the first time-and reveal how artists used drawing to record, critique, and try to improve the world around them. Distributed for the Clark Art Institute Exhibition Schedule: Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA (December 17, 2022-March 12, 2023) Musee des Beaux-Arts de Tours (May 12-August 28, 2023)

Alors que l'on sort a peine de la querelle des Anciens et des Modernes en Europe, la curiosite antiquaire se mondialise. De Paris a Pekin, de Delhi a Mexico en passant par Copenhague ou Philadelphie, cet engouement pour les discussions et les pratiques antiquaires s'affirme au dix-huitieme siecle et deconstruit les contours rassurants du modele greco-latin. Ce livre essaie de rendre compte de ce changement d'echelle en suivant une perspective originale et nouvelle en faveur d'une histoire connectee de la connaissance antiquaire au dix-huitieme siecle. Loin des traditions nationales ou seulement comparatistes qui avaient mis en evidence les relations que les differentes societes humaines avaient entretenues, au cours de l'histoire, avec les vestiges du passe, ce livre envisage les cultures et les savoirs antiquaires dans leur materialite non seulement dans les metropoles europeennes, mais aussi dans les capitales americaines et asiatiques. A distance d'une Antiquite figee, ce livre entend montrer comment la mobilite des savants et des artistes a commence a pluraliser l'Antiquite des le dix-huitieme siecle, a la depayser dans un contexte global et imperial. ~ Just as the quarrel between the Ancients and the Moderns was coming to an end in Europe, antiquarian curiosity became global. From Paris to Peking, from Delhi to Mexico City, via Copenhagen and Philadelphia, this craze for antiquarian discussions and practices took hold in the eighteenth century and deconstructed the reassuring contours of the Greco-Latin model. This book attempts to account for this change of scale by following an original and new perspective in favour of a connected history of antiquarian knowledge in the eighteenth century. Far from the national or only comparative traditions that had highlighted the relations that the different human societies had maintained, in the course of history, with the remains of the past, this book considers the cultures and the antiquarian knowledge in their materiality not only in the European metropolises, but also in the American and Asian capitals. This book aims to show how the mobility of scholars and artists began to pluralize antiquity from the eighteenth century onwards, to make it more diverse in a global and imperial context.