About the catalogue
The Paul Mellon Centre archive catalogue contains primarily information about
its Collected Archive holdings.
The Collected Archives consist of material acquired by the Centre from
external sources because of its relevance to the study of British art history
and architecture. Most of the collections comprise the research
papers of art historians, many of whom were pioneers in the formation of the discipline.
The
majority of the material concerns the study of seventeenth and
eighteenth-century British art, although the range extends from the sixteenth to
nineteenth century. The collections also include material on foreign artists in England. The papers chart the historiography of British art history,
and reveal the networks of scholars, curators, dealers, collectors, publishers,
museums and societies that shaped discourses on artistic practice, often
resulting in major publications and exhibitions. Particular subject strengths
include the Grand Tour and country house collections and the archives are a rich resource for the study of provenance, collections and collecting.
The Centre currently houses 33 different archive collections. A
summary description of each is available on on The Paul Mellon Centre’s Research Collections web pages.
Cataloguing of the Collected Archives is on-going with new records being
added on a regular basis. If you can’t find what you are looking for, please
contact collections@paul-mellon-centre.ac.uk.
The catalogue also contains a small amount of information about the Centre’s
Institutional Records (those records created by the Paul Mellon Centre, and its
predecessor the Paul Mellon Foundation).
The Paul Mellon Centre’s Library & Photographic Archive catalogue is separate from the archive catalogue: http://paulmelloncentre.cirqahosting.com/HeritageScripts/Hapi.dll/search1