It is one of the basic responsibilities of major collections to research and publish the works of art in their care. Such projects can take many years to mature and are often abandoned because of a lack of funding or shifting institutional priorities. It might be imagined, therefore, that because of these threats and the formidable cost of producing specialist and richly illustrated books, that collection catalogues would have become an extinct species. However, happily, a close reading of this Magazine in recent months would suggest otherwise, across a wide range of media and in terms of a broad chronological span. Our November 2024 issue, for example, included reviews of major catalogues of the silver in the Musée du Louvre, Paris, the sculpture in the Galleria Borghese, Rome, and the French paintings in the Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh. 

The background to such projects is far from straightforward and may well be shaped by the values of a gallery director as much as the curatorial skills and knowledge that are available. In addition to these variables, there is often a lack of a shared understanding – even among museum professionals – about what a catalogue is and what function it should serve. The truth is, it can be many things. A basic, reliable list of objects, with key data that is well illustrated, is a valuable catalogue for research purposes. However, the type of publications being considered here are so much more; they often combine art-historical and technical research and carefully assess issues of provenance, medium, attribution, function, dating, context in an artist’s career and critical history, among other fascinating issues, and thereby push forward scholarship and debate in a number of areas. 

Different styles of scholarly cataloguing have emerged since the mid-twentieth century. These include the austere approach of art historians such as James Byam Shaw or John Ingamells, in whose catalogues of drawings and paintings in British collections a wealth of knowledge was distilled in a few immaculate lines. Such restraint can be contrasted with the more modern extensive, exhaustive – and exhausting – strategy, whereby the scholarly catalogue entry is in effect an essay that can take you down art-historical byways away from the main road of research, as well as addressing the key issues listed above. Such scholarship perhaps seeks to be the last word on the subject. This is a vain hope, as of course there is no such thing. 

The resources required in order to achieve such an expansive and richly nuanced outcome are often only available in national or university-based institutions – increasingly so because of the dire state of arts funding beyond them, which has recently been commented on in Editorials published in this Magazine. In this environment it is all the more remarkable, therefore, that a regional British collection should publish a new catalogue, as Leicester Museums and Galleries have recently done, celebrating their renowned holdings of German Expressionist art.[1] This catalogue is a hybrid, as it combines lists of works and illustrations with more in-depth discussion of particular highlights in the collection, such as paintings by Lovis Corinth, Lyonel Feininger and Max Pechstein. Civic pride was no doubt a chief motivation for the creation of this publication but it will undoubtedly have wider benefits. 

Major cataloguing projects that focus on the work of particular artists or types of works of art that have been dispersed is the other key area where skills comparable to those used for collection catalogues are required. Such projects have their own representative body, the International Catalogue Raisonné Association (ICRA), which provides a forum for discussion and information sharing for those engaged in researching, editing, designing or producing such catalogues. ICRA recently held its annual conference, at which a remarkably wide range of cataloguing initiatives were discussed, including those focusing on the oeuvres of Joseph Wright of Derby, Amedeo Modigliani, David Smith, Hans Arp, Sophie Taeuber-Arp and Sol LeWitt.[2] Projects that fall into this category and are soon to come to fruition in 2025 after many years of work include Pierre Rosenberg’s catalogue of the paintings of Nicolas Poussin and the Lucian Freud catalogue raisonné of paintings by Catherine Lampert and Toby Treves. Both will appear as printed books. 

A key consideration being regularly addressed by museums and galleries and scholars working on catalogues of a particular artist’s work is whether to publish in book form and, if so, how such a project sits in a world where digital access reigns supreme as a democratic and information-sharing ideal. For some initiatives, where works of a particular type are widely dispersed, an online catalogue is undoubtedly beneficial; a fascinating example of this is the Digital Benin catalogue, a platform where objects in collections across the globe are reunited alongside historical photographs and other types of documentation; it includes data from 138 institutions across twenty countries and currently features 5,288 historic Benin objects that can be searched and studied.[3] 

However, if funds are available, and the group of works being scrutinised is not too vast, perhaps the perfect model to achieve is a mixed one, so that detailed, scholarly catalogues continue to appear as books – retaining all the pleasure of consulting and poring over them in this form – while also being complemented by online resources, which allow an overview of a collection and, most especially, the benefit of scrutinising high-definition images, that can be magnified with ease. Large numbers of comparative illustrations and technical images are also particularly effectively offered and studied in this medium. 

Returning to the prospects for collection catalogues, what is new and what is on the horizon? A catalogue of the fifteenth-century Netherlandish paintings in the Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, by José Juan Pérez Preciado, has just appeared, as has the catalogue of the German paintings before 1800 in the National Gallery, London, by Susan Foister. Later this year we can look forward to catalogues of the European sculpture in the Royal Collection by Jonathan Marsden and the Catalogue of Arms and Armour and Decorative Arts from Asia and the Ottoman World in the Wallace Collection, London, edited by Thom Richardson and Paula Turner. All will be given the close scrutiny and respect they are due in the pages of this Magazine. 

Just as forming a collection can be an immensely rewarding creative act, so can cataloguing one – bringing order to its shape, troughs and peaks, and placing all its constituent parts in a meaningful historical context. Long may cataloguers and their endeavours be valued.

[1] S. Behr, J. Glennie, J. Lloyd, D. Price, N. Stratton Tyler and C. Weikop: German Expressionism: The Leicester Museums and Galleries’ Collection, Leicester 2024. 

[2] ‘New thinking about the catalogue raisonné’, programme available at icra.art/ events, accessed 12th January 2025. 

[3] Digital Benin, available at digitalbenin.org, accessed 12th January 2025.