The ARTFL Project

The Image of France, 1795-1880, is an enumeration of the printed imagery – engravings, lithographs, photographs, etc. – which was published in France in accordance with the requirements of legal deposit.

The resource consists of an index of this documentation as found in the following sources: (a) the journal La Bibliographie de la France (1811-1880, app. 109,000 listings), (b) its predecessor Le Journal général de l'Imprimerie (1810-1811, app. 198 listings), (c) the manuscript registers of legal deposit of prints, 1795-1811, an era when the procedure was administered by the Département des Estampes of the Bibliothèque nationale (app. 2000 listings), and (d) the registers of prints and photographs which were refused authorization for publication, in so far as this record survives in systematic form at the Archives nationales de France (app. 780 listings, added in 2010).

The resource does not contain images of the prints and photographs, themselves, but only the enumeration of their titles, the date of their listing and, usually, an indication of their responsible personnel – artists, printers and distributors. The sources of the listings are noted only when this is not La Bibliographie de la France. Also, it should be noted that the resource does not usually contain listings of images published in books, journals or newspapers, unless these images were also issued independently as separate publications..

In accordance with law, two copies of all of these works would have been placed in the collections of the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris, where they may be sought today.