Adam Bartsch

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Self-portrait, 1785

Johann Adam Bernhard Ritter von Bartsch (17 August 1757 – 21 August 1821) was an Austrian scholar and artist. His catalogue of old master prints, Le Peintre Graveur is the foundation of print history, and he was himself a printmaker practicing engraving and etching.

Bartsch was born and died in

Albertina, Vienna, then as now the world's finest collection of old master prints
. In the twentieth century the two collections were merged in the Albertina.

"Le Peintre Graveur"

Between 1803 and his death in 1821 Bartsch published in French in 21 volumes Le Peintre Graveur, a pioneering catalogue of

painter-engravers
from the 15th to the 17th century. References to "Bartsch" normally mean this work. It has been reprinted five times, most recently in 1982. In 1821 he also published the Kupferstichkunde (The Art of Engraving) in German.

"The Illustrated Bartsch"

"

ARTstor
- essentially in US & Canada only.

Legacy

Bartsch established what has become the definitive numbering system, bearing his name (e.g. "Bartsch 17" or "B17"), for Rembrandt etchings and the prints of many other artists, which is still used or at least referred to most subsequent and standard works in this field. His numbers list the works by category, roughly following the contemporary hierarchy of genres, except that self-portraits come first, followed by biblical subjects, then subjects of saints, allegories, and so on. In his lifetime, Bartsch executed over 500 plates from his own designs and from those of other masters. Many are attractive but he is not a major artist.

His term

painter-engraver is also still in use to distinguish original from reproductive printmakers, especially in the period of the old master print
(to about 1830).

References

  1. ISBN 0-89835-000-X
    .

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Adam von Bartsch.
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