Nouvelle Collection d'Arabesques

Alexandre Lenoir was a French archaeologist and self-taught artist who devoted his life to salvaging France’s historic monuments, sculptures, and tombs. Alexandre was a young man when he witnessed the decreed destruction of the royal tombs after the French Revolution. As a result, he founded (and served as the administrator of for thirty years), the Musee des Monuments Francais, demanding that all art objects from state properties be gathered there. The forms in this volume are comprised primarily of designs by French interior designer Lavallee Poussin drawn from the antiquities of Herculaneum and designs on other Roman palaces and villas. Guyot's engravings also include compositions by Voisin, Le Clerc, Berthelot, de Claire, and Janneret.