The Lost Volumes of Jean-Louis Soulavie’s Monumens de l’histoire de France en estampes et dessins

Over the course of several decades, and against the backdrop of the French Revolution, the historian, naturalist, and diplomat Jean-Louis Soulavie (1752–1813) formed a collection of some twenty-two thousand prints and drawings, which he titled Monumens de l’histoire de France en estampes et dessins (Monuments of the history of France in prints and drawings). Following his death, Soulavie’s 152 volumes belonged to the dukes of Leuchtenberg and were transported to Munich, Saint Petersburg, and ultimately, to Paris where the majority were disbound and their contents auctioned off in the early twentieth century. The whereabouts of the others remained a mystery. This study examines the history and provenance of the Soulavie collection, and describes the thirty bound volumes of the Monumens de l’histoire de France in the collection of the Getty Research Institute.