Sebastiano Resta's drawing albums: A case study in the materiality in knowledge systems and the epistemology of drawings

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This project focuses on the albums of drawings assembled by the connoisseur and collector Sebastiano Resta (1635-1715). These albums, organized according to artistic schools and geographical regions represent a visual history of art, in which art historical narrative is based directly on works of art rather than artists' lives. This aspect of Resta's albums brings to evidence complex lines of reasoning established through a network of text and images. Resta's albums are among the first visual art historiography, an innovative mode of art historical narrative whose foundation has so far been attributed to Christian Mecheln's significantly later rearrangement of the collection of the Belvedere in Vienna (1778-81). One of this project's main goals is to reconstruct the epistemic and historiographical preconditions for Resta's albums. Another goal is to better define the nature of drawings as cornerstones of this early modern art historical knowledge and historiography. Resta's albums showcase such art historical writing by highlighting its implicit historical and methodological conditions. They will be studied in relation to specific art historical textual traditions, but also in comparison to natural historical taxonomy or graphological approaches from circa 1700. The project therefore proposes to rediscover the scientific roots of connoisseurship and that of certain art historical organisational systems (such as artistic schools and periods) as well as the theoretical implications of the materiality of such a knowledge system that was predominantly based on the object of drawings.