Once in Paris, the first thing we had proposed was to pay a visit to the tomb of Bernard de Montfaucon (1655–1741), who is buried in the Chapelle de la Vierge in Saint-Germain-des-Prés alongside Jean Mabillon (1632–1707) and René Descartes (1596–1650). The text of his epitaph reads:

Somewhat overshadowed by a current exhibition on the Gothic in Toulouse, we were able to take a close look at the Pillar of the Nautae Parisiaci in the Frigidarium of the Baths of Lutetia, now part of the Musée de Cluny – Musée national du Moyen Âge. The four blocks with representations of Roman or Gallic deities and a dedicatory inscription, at present displayed separately, once formed a pillar in a sanctuary on the Île de la Cité and date to the 1st quarter of the 1st century AD. On site, using the alpha version of the Thesaurus database, we were able to access the earliest graphic representations from 1711 for direct comparison (cf. ThesaurusID 1672345).

However, the stay in Paris was primarily devoted to consulting BnF documents, manuscripts but also artifacts from its various departments and depots holdings.

The album with drawings of objects from the former collection of Nicolas-Joseph Foucault (1643–1721) – Desseins des figures, bas reliefs et inscriptions. Recueil de Figures et autres monumens antiques – is dated between 1714 and 1719 and one of the most important sources and templates for Montfaucon. Browsing the album confirmed the heterogeneous nature of the graphic material it contains. [4] Of the about thousand objects listed in an written inventory, some two hundred and fifty bear references to drawings commissioned by Foucault. [5] The comparison of drawings executed directly on the album’s sheets, those pasted onto the album’s pages, and clippings from Montfaucon's proofs requires a closer look at the album to better understand the process in which it was produced and the relative chronology of its contents.

Through the generous courtesy of Mathilde Avisseau-Broustet, a unique opportunity arose during our visit to examine the fidelity of the draughtsmen, for example in the transcriptions of hieroglyphs, and the relationship in size between the reproductions and the surviving artifacts, as in the case of a heart scarab [6]:

... and a small Horus stele [7]:

A highlight of our visit were some Egyptian objects that we had catalogued in Berlin shortly before, as well as some modern works also included in the graphic corpora because they were considered ancient originals or because their iconography was relevant to the respective discourses. While only a small selection of these artefacts are on display at the BnF Museum, we were able to take a closer look and examine several items taken directly from the BnF’s depot. These are some of the precious pieces:

About a year ago, an enigmatic bronze knob kicked off our blog series. Two watercolor drawings in one of the two albums of the so-called Cabinet de Peiresc reproduce this curious object, which we were able to get our hands on shortly before in the Museum Department of the BnF (ThesaurusID 1315419): [11]

For the investigation and the understanding of the creation process of the 15 volumes of “L'Antiquité expliquée” (1719–1724), especially the so-called Papiers de Montfaucon are extremely thrilling. [12] Of the 17 albums, several contain, to variable degrees, the pictorial material that Montfaucon compiled from countless, highly heterogeneous sources and then prepared step by step for printing in collaboration with the engravers who worked for him. For example, a page in the album Ms. latin 11917 shows how a drawn copy based on the drawing of the heart scarab shown above from the Foucault collection is related by Montfaucon to other drawings of Egyptian artifacts from other sources. Bound immediately before it is a proof of the plate, on which the illustrations have been put in a different order, while the information on the origins of Montfaucon's illustrations has been added still in handwriting. On the final plate in the published first state, these are then transferred to the engraving, as are the title and the numbering of the plate.

The interrelations between the various forms of graphic reproduction and the references to the depicted artifact are presented comprehensively by the Thesaurus database.

Further volumes of the BnF, which will be catalogued for the Thesaurus in the future, come from the bequest of Nicolas Claude Fabri de Peiresc, e.g. Ms. Dupuy 667. [13] It contains numerous letters, treatises on ancient numismatics, glyptics and epigraphy, wax impressions of ancient coins and gems, as well as remarkable drawings, and can so far only be consulted online as a digital copy of a black-and-white microfilm.

The Antiquités grecques et romaines are a still largely unpublished collection of drawings and prints in the holdings of the Dép. Estampes et photograhie of the BnF. [14] It is a recent form of a paper museum in the tradition of Cassiano dal Pozzo and a specifically archaeological precursor to Aby Warburg's Bilderatlas. The extensive collection with over 2,000 graphic reproductions of antiquities of various origins has not yet been digitized at all.

The department of Egyptian art of the Louvre contains several objects that had already found their way to Europe in the period before the Napoleonic expeditions to the Nile, and which can also be found in the visual sources studied for the Thesaurus, including the two sphinxes of Nepherites I (ThesaurusID 1315329) and Achoris (ThesaurusID 1315331) as well as a seated statue of the goddess Wenut (ThesaurusID 1552188). [15]

For the musée Charles X (today's département des Antiquités égyptiennes), inaugurated in December 1827, Jean-François Champollion, who shortly before (1822) had made a name for himself by deciphering ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, was appointed director. For the very first Egyptian museum at the Louvre, he had compiled a small guide with descriptions and detailed explanations of the 5,333 monuments partially on display and completely unknown to the public: Notice descriptive des monumens égyprienns du musée Charles X... (1827). Despite its lack of illustrations, objects have since been identified and catalogued [16] to the extent that the Thesaurus was able to link and annotate them with their associated pictorial sources, including, for example, the cube figure of Petamenophis (ThesaurusID 1432981) and the statue of Cleopatra VII (ThesaurusID 1597938), which is now heavily fragmented. [17]