SERIES C: PRINTS

Cassiano’s print collection survives in fourteen albums, miscellaneous compilations and impressions from disassembled albums divided mainly between the British Library and the Royal Library at Windsor Castle (where the bulk of the drawings are housed). Cassiano rarely commissioned printmakers to engrave plates as he did drawings, but he bought what was available from the flourishing printmaking industry of the time and organized it around specific subjects. Amongst these are maps and portraits, religious processions and ceremonies, an album devoted to the history of St Peter’s and another containing prints of social subjects. 

The project to catalogue the Paper Museum initially concerned itself solely with the drawings and watercolours from Cassiano’s collection, to be published in the two series dealing with antiquities and natural history. It became increasingly clear, however, that prints were an equally important part of this collection, and around 3,100 prints have so far been identified. Many are unique impressions and bear witness to the systematic organization characteristic of the Paper Museum. Given the importance of the material and the fact that it had been little researched, it was decided to catalogue the prints in six volumes as a third series within the catalogue raisonné.

The author is Dr Mark McDonald, Curator of Old Master Prints in the Department of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum.