An auction catalogue for the sale of the stock of Parisian print dealer Marie Madelaine Adrienne Lenoir Alibert and her husband Jean Guillaume, after Marie’s death; including an important collection of prints by and after Anthony van Dyck from the collection of legendary French print dealer, Pierre Jean Mariette (Lot 524 here).
Due to take place over ten days in April-May 1803, the auction comprised 607 individual and group lots of the Aliberts’ wide-ranging stock, arranged alphabetically by engraver and by subject, from portraits and architecture to history and religious scenes. Also for sale are reference works, books, mezzotints - pieces ‘en manière noir’ - engraving utensils, paper and parchment as well as the plates themselves, listed here as cuivres, coppers, or planches, wood, and giving the name of the engraver where signed (lots 544-552). The jewel in the collection, highlighted in the preliminary Avertissement, is the large group of Van Dyck portraits that constitute lot 524, regarded by Mariette as ‘one des plus belles de son Cabinet’, and most numerous, comprising 522 pieces. In the 27 years since their acquisition from Mariette’s sale, Marie Alibert and her husband added to the group for it to become ‘la plus nombreuse connue en France, et peut-être en Europe’. It occupies pp.97-148 here; the sale of this lot is scheduled for the ninth day of the ten-day sale.
Little is known of print seller Madame Alibert, though her stock was evidently considerable, and it is notable - and perhaps testament to her role in the business - that her husband Jean Guillaume ceased trading and dissolved their business after her death. Women were known to be active participants in the Parisian book and print trade as printers, dealers and business owners, both with their husbands and independently, frequently as widows; among the best known in the book trade are Marie-Antoinette Cailleau (the widow Duchesne), Marie-Nicole Herissant (la veuve Herissant), engraver Elisabeth Cousinet (Madame Lempereur), and in the print trade specifically, Catherine-Thérèse Landry (1721-c.1769).
Number ‘4’ sporadically inked in the margins in eighteenth-century hand.
Cicognara 4566.
