Prints from the Leber Collection - Musée des Beaux-Arts, Orléans

From Duerer to Mantegna: the masters of printmaking at the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Orléans, France until November 28, 2010


A special exhibition which brings together 150 European prints from the Renaissance, the majority never before exhibited.The works presented come chiefly from the collection of Jean-Michel Constant Leber (1780-1859), scholar and bibiliophile, a native of Orléans. On his death, the museum of Orléans acquired his collection of 2,000 prints which represent a history of printmaking  from the 15th to the 19th century. For the first time, the museum unveils to the public some of its treasures.. The exhibition focuses on one of the most interesting periods: prints of the Renaissance from around 1450-1550.Many unpublished prints are presented, along with woodblocks from the famous Nuremberg Chronicle (1493). This exhibition allows us to discover the first masters of this nascent art: Duerer, Cranach, Mantegna, Raimondi, Drevet, Goujon, Breughel: their technical mastery means today we can admire genuine masterpieces.

A catalogue of this unique collection has just been published and will be available online soon.