THE SALON OF 1808, TABULATED BY A CONTEMPORARY (RUSSIAN?) CRITIC. 8vo. (2) ff, 120 pp. Bound in 19th century green marbled boards with a cloth spine. This copy showing concerted signs of use: the right-hand margin of the title and Avertissement leaf have been trimmed (with loss of a few letters) in order to reveal the pages underneath, out of which have been cut tabs with catalogue numbers as handy references. Most pages furthermore reveal markings of either red crayon or penciled crosses. ‘V? / 1808’ in red crayon on front board. Rare sole edition of this catalogue of the Salon of 1808 held at the Louvre, known at the time as the Musée Napoléon. The museum specialized in foreign artwork looted by Napoleon’s campaigns, but here we find paintings, sculptures, architectural motifs and engravings by living French artists. The present copy was evidently exhaustively used, with the reader going so far as to create ‘tabs’ for easier access to particular sections. Red crayon and pencil markings may be indicative of the reader’s (critic’s?) taste; on the front board we also find ‘1808’ inscribed in red crayon as well as the Cyrillic letters ‘V?’, perhaps suggesting a Russian visitor. The catalogue comprises 834 numbered items: 631 paintings, 88 sculptures, 16 architectural displays, and 64 engravings. Beneath each artist’s name is his or her current address – an important source of information, particularly for obscure artists of this period, including a number of women: Pauline Auzou, Marie Bouliard, Emilie Bounieu, Elise Bruyere, Sophie and her sister Fanny Charrin, Jeanne-Elisabeth Chaudet, and an untraced ‘Mlle Charlu’ (3 paintings including one miniature), to name just a few. Following Napoleon’s downfall in 1814, the mass restitution of artwork looted from Germany and Italy began. By 1815 the Louvre was forced to close, having run out of material to exhibit. It opened again as the ‘Musée Royal’ in 1816. OCLC shows four copies in American libraries: the Smithsonian, the Boston Athenaeum, the University of Pittsburgh, and Rice University in Houston. The Watson Library at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York holds a 1977 facsimile. * OCLC 7879557