Print collector's quarterly (4.1914)

THE MEMOIRS AND JOURNAL OF
JEAN-GEORGES WILLE
(1715-1808)

By LOUIS R. METCALFE
Author of “ Robert Nanteuil,” “ Jean Morin,” “ A Prince of Print-Collectors:
Michel de Marollea, Abb6 de Villeloin,” “ The Etchings of Antonio Canale,
called Canaletto,” “ Willem Jacobsz. Delff and his Father-in-law.”


N 1792 a Nürnberg print-seller asked Wille
for his Memoirs. The then best-known en-
graver in Europe answered that he was nei-
ther vain nor ambitious enough to wish to

see his story in print, but that if after his death any one
cared to write a sketch of his life, he would find enough
material in a Journal in which, if he (Wille) had shown
some negligence, he had consistently told the truth.
Ten years later, however, he yielded to the entreaties
of an only son, and wrote the story of the first part of his
life. The manuscript was lost in the chaos which fol-
lowed the Revolution, but it was eventually found and
surrendered to the Curator of the Cabinet des Estampes,
with the happy result that, in 1857, that enthusiastic
savant M. Georges Duplessis was enabled to publish
both the Memoirs and the Journal, with a preface by
Jules and Edmond de Goncourt.

The work is a precious historical document and most
interesting reading for both the Student of the eight-
eenth Century and the print-collector. Who, since its
publication, has been able to write on the art of that

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