Johann Adam Bernhard Ritter von Bartsch (1757–1821)

• Was an Austrian scholar and artist.
• His catalogue of old master prints, Le Peintre Graveur is the foundation of print history, and he was himself a printmaker practicing engraving and etching.
• Bartsch was born and died in Vienna.
• He joined the staff of the Royal Court Library in Vienna in 1777, after studying engraving at the Vienna Kupferstecheracademie.
• He became head curator of the print collection in 1791.
• He was also an advisor to Duke Albert of Saxe-Teschen, who founded the collection of the Albertina, Vienna.
• Between 1803 and his death in 1821, Bartsch published in French in 21 volumes Le Peintre Graveur, a pioneering catalogue of old master prints by Dutch, Flemish, German, and Italian painter-engravers from the 15th to the 17th century.
• It has been reprinted five times, most recently in 1982.
• In 1821 he also published the Kupferstichkunde (The Art of Engraving) in German.
• The displayed painting is a crop from Adam von Bartsch, Self-Portrait, 1785.
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