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- Count Giacomo Durazzo
- Also known as
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Count Giacomo Durazzo
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primary name: Durazzo, Giacomo
- Details
- individual; collector; Italian; Male
- Life dates
- 1717-1794
- Biography
- Collector, and adviser to Albert of Sachsen-Teschen; born in Genoa. Austrian ambassador to Venice, 1764-84. The collection included books as well as prints, and continued to be added to after his death. It seems that many of the records of acquisition are preserved in the family in Genoa, and that the sources were international (see Petrucciani).
The print collection was sold by Gutekunst in Stuttgart in two parts, on 19 November 1872 and 20 May 1873 (for the BM's acquisitions see 1873,0809.613 to 969). The BM had previously tried and failed to buy the whole collection (see Carpenter's report dated 5 April 1848). It had first been offered to the BM in 1826 for £14,000: see J T Smith's report dated 10 May 1826 in which he recommended against accepting the offer.
- Bibliography
- See Bartolommeo Benincasa, 'Descrizione della Raccolta di Stampe di S.E. Il Sig.Conte Jacopo Durazzo, Patrizio Genovese ec.ec. esposta in una dissertazione sull'arte dell'intaglia a stampa', Parma, 1784. (In P&D library).
Alberto Petrucciani, 'Gli incunaboli della collezione Durazzo', Genoa 1988 (the Durazzo books are still in private hands in Genoa
Barbara Dossi, 'Albertina', Munich 1998
Natale Maffioli, 'Saggi e Memorie' 23 (1999), pp.83-112, 'Osservazioni sui resti della raccolta di Giacomo Durazzo' (in P&D library, Ss.1.93)
For a history of the collections of the Durazzo family, see Luca Leoncini (ed), 'Da Tintoretto a Rubens: Capolavori della Collezione Durazzo', exh cat, Genoa, Palazzo Reale, 2004, and the 2012 exhibition in the same venue by the same author
