ANECDOTES
OF
PAINTERS, ENGRAVERS,
Sculptors and Architects,
AND
CURIOSITIES OF ART.
BY
SHEARJASHUB SPOONER, A. B., M. D.,
AUTHOR OF “A BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL DICTIONARY OF PAINTERS,ENGRAVERS, SCULPTORS, AND ARCHITECTS, FROM ANCIENTTO MODERN TIMES.”
I N T H R E E V O L U M E S.
VOL. I.
New York:
PUBLISHED FOR THE AUTHOR,
BY G. P. PUTNAM & COMPANY, 10 PARK PLACE.
1853.
PREFACE.
This work is not a mere compilation, or republication of anecdote. Itwill be found to contain much original matter, and much of the mostinteresting and instructive portions of the history of art. For a listof authorities, the reader is referred to the author’s Dictionary ofPainters, etc., and for a convenient reference, to the Index at the endof vol. iii. The author has studied his subject con amore, for manyyears, and has gathered abundant materials for three more volumes,should these be favorably received. But he fears lest in theseromance-loving days, the recital of the trials, misfortunes,achievements and exaltations of those men of genius and finesensibilities, to whom the world is indebted for the creation anddevelopment of the most beautiful arts, will fail to arrest theattention or move the heart.
Although it does not become a man to prate of himself, yet the authortrusts he will be pardoned when he speaks of his labors and theirobject. For a long period, his labors have been directed to the greatobject of the restoration and publication of Napoleon’s magnificentworks, the{iv} Musée Français and the Musée Royal, a notice of which may befound in vol. iii., page 302, of this work. He trusts he may soon beable to present the first numbers to the public. These, and his otherachieved undertakings, have made his life one of the most untiringindustry. In order to find time for these enterprises, and still attendto the calls of his profession, he has been obliged to deprive himselfof repose and relaxation; and during the five years he was engaged inpublishing Boydell’s Illustrations of Shakspeare, and in preparing hisDictionary for the press, he spent but one evening out of his study,except those of the Sabbath, relinquishing his toil only at midnight, tobe resumed at dawn.
These self-imposed labors have not been assumed through any mercenary orselfish motives. His experience has taught him the precarious results ofliterary and publishing enterprises of the nature undertaken by him, inthe present state of the Fine Arts in our country. The amount of capitaland labor he has invested has been enormous, and the risksproportionate; his books admonish him that he has already embarked manythousands of dollars which he can never hope to regain. Still, what hehas accomplished is to him a theme of pride and exultation; it has alsobeen a labor of love. His reward is the consciousness of