Pierre-François Hugues d'Hancarville

Pierre-François Hugues d'Hancarville. Detail of the painting Charles Townley in his Sculpture Gallery by Johann Zoffany from 1782

Pierre-François Hugues Baron d'Hancarville (born January 1, 1719 in Nancy as Pierre-François Hugues , † October 9, 1805 in Padua ) was a French adventurer, archeologist and art historian . He is best known for the publication of William Hamilton's vase collection, which he supervises .

Pierre-François Hugues was the son of a cloth merchant. He first went to Germany, where he embarked on a military career. He was captain at the court of Mecklenburg and was later in the service of Württemberg . Travels took him to many major European cities. Since the 1750s he called himself Baron d'Hancarville . Through his demeanor, his talent and his eloquence , he came into contact with the leading circles in Europe. He met Gotthold Ephraim Lessing and was in correspondence with Frederick the Great , Voltaire and Johann Joachim Winckelmann .

He came into conflict with the law several times. He was persecuted for debts and theft and was temporarily imprisoned. In 1763 he came to Naples , where he met the English ambassador William Hamilton. This commissioned him with the publication of his vase collection. The first volume appeared in Naples in 1767, but d'Hancarville was expelled from Naples in 1769 because of his debts. He left the city in the direction of Florence and stole finished plates for further volumes from Hamilton's collection. His debts caught up with him in Florence too and he was imprisoned again. In order to settle his debts, he pawned, among other things, these tablets, which Hamilton later had to redeem. The further publication of the volumes was therefore massively delayed. D'Hancarville went to London in 1777 , where he was supported by Charles Townley and Richard Payne Knight , and in 1785 he went to Paris. He left the city for Rome because of the turmoil of the French Revolution in 1792 . Later he went to Venice . In Italy he could spend his old age as a scholar.

D'Hancarville published his first book in 1752; it was still a work on politics and morals. He earned his special reputation with the publication of the catalog of the Hamilton Collection under the title Collection Of Etruscan, Greek And Roman Antiquities From The Cabinet Of The Honble. Wm. Hamilton . Despite the personal delays in publication, this catalog is still considered an epoch-making work in art history and archeology . Thanks to the quality and novelty of the representations, he had a long-lasting influence on the reception of antiquities . In later volumes of the catalog, d'Hancarville also included works of art other than vases and even tried to give a comprehensive art-historical consideration in the texts. In addition, he published a volume with antique and antique-looking erotic gem images , which was reprinted several times. He wrote the accompanying texts with an ironic undertone.

Fonts

• Essai de politique et de morale calculée. Volume 1. sn, sl 1752 (only this volume published).
• Collection of Etruscan, Greek, and Roman antiquities from the cabinet of the Honble. Wm. Hamilton. = Antiquités etrusques, grecques et romaines. Tirees du Cabinet de M. Hamilton. 4 volumes. Imprimé par François Morelli, Naples, 1766–1767, (vol. 1, 1766 [printed 1767], digitized , vol. 2, 1767 [1770], digitized , vol. 3, 1767 [1776], digitized , vol. 4, 1767 [1776], digitized ).
• Veneres uti observantur in gemmis antiquis. 2 volumes. sn, Lugduni Batavorum 1771.
• Monumens de la vie privée des douze Cesars d'après une suite de pierres gravées sous leur règne. Sabellus, Capri [that is: Leclerc, Nancy] 1780, digitized .
• Monumens du culte secret des dames romaines, pour servir de suite aux monuments de la vie privée des XII Césars. Sabellus, Capri [that is: Leclerc, Nancy] 1784, digitized .
• Research on l'origine, l'esprit et les progresses des arts dans la Grèce; sur leurs connexions avec les arts et la religion des plus anciens peuples connus; sur les monumens antiques de l'Inde, de la Perse, du reste de l'Asie, de l'Europe et de l'Égypte. 2 volumes + supplement. Appleyard, London 1785, digitized volume 1 , digitized volume 2 , digitized supplement .

literature

• Francis Haskell : The Baron d'Harncarville. An Adventurer and Art Historian in Eighteenth-Century Europe. In: Edward Chaney, Neil Ritchie (Eds.): Oxford, China and Italy. Writings in honor of Sir Harold Acton on his eightieth birthday. Passigli, Florenz 1984, pp. 177–191 (reprinted in: Francis Haskell: Past and Present in Art and Taste. Selected Essays. Yale University Press, New Haven (Connecticut) et al. 1987, ISBN 0-300-03607-8 , Pp. 30–45, 230–232; in German: The Baron d'Harncarville. Adventurer and art historian in 18th century Europe. In: Francis Haskell: Change of art in style and taste. Selected writings. DuMont, Cologne 1990 , ISBN 3-7701-2295-X , pp. 62-87).
• Pascal Griener: La antichità etrusche, greche e romane 1766–1776 by Pierre Hugues d'Hancarville. La pubblicazione delle ceramiche antiche della prima collezione Hamilton. Edizioni dell'Elefante, Rome 1992, ISBN 88-7176-011-5 .
• Alain Schnapp : La pratique de la collection et ses conséquences sur l'histoire de l'antiquité. Le chevalier d'Hancarville. In: Annie-France Laurens, Kryzystof Pomian (ed.): L'anticomanie. La collection d'antiquités aux 18e et 19e siècles (= Civilizations et Sociétés. Vol. 86). Éditions de l'École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris 1992, ISBN 2-7132-0987-0 , pp. 97-109.
• Ian Jenkins , Kim Sloan: Vases & Volcanoes. Sir William Hamilton and his collection. British Museum Press, London 1996, ISBN 0-7141-1766-8 .
• Wanda Löwe, Maria Effinger: A very valuable gift to the ancient researchers. "D'Hancarvilles Antiquités étrusques, grecques et romaines". In: Martin Flashar (Ed.): 1768. Europa à la grecque. Vases make fashion (= writings from the archaeological collection Freiburg. Vol. 2). Biering & Brinkmann, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-930609-17-7 , pp. 49-59.
• Petra Lamers-Schütze (Ed.), Sebastian Schütze, Madeleine Gisler-Huwiler (Text): The collection of antiquities from the cabinet of Sir William Hamilton = Collection des antiquités du cabinet de Sir William Hamilton = The collection of antiquities from the cabinet of Sir William Hamilton. Taschen, Köln et al. 2004, ISBN 3-8228-2195-0 (reprint of the work from 1766 to 1767 based on the copy in the Anna Amalia Library Weimar, with commentary in three languages; review by Hildegard Wiegel in sehepunkte. 5, no. 6 , 2005, ISSN  1618-6168 ).
• Martin Bentz : Hugues d'Hancarville, Pierre-François. In: Peter Kuhlmann , Helmuth Schneider (Hrsg.): History of the ancient sciences. Biographical Lexicon (= The New Pauly . Supplements. Volume 6). Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2012, ISBN 978-3-476-02033-8 , Sp. 596-598.

Web links

Commons : Pierre-François Hugues d'Hancarville  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Pierre-François Hugues d'Hancarville in the catalog of the German National Library