Full Name: Séroux d'Agincourt, Jean-Baptiste
Other Names:
- Jean-Baptiste-Louis-Georges Séroux d'Agincourt
Gender: male
Date Born: 1730
Date Died: 1814
Place Born: France
Place Died: Rome, Lazio, Italy
Home Country/ies: France
Subject Area(s): ancient and Medieval (European)
Career(s): art collectors
Overview
Collector and historian of ancient and medieval art. Séroux befriended artists and collectors who frequented the salon of Marie-Therese Geoffrin, including Denis Diederot, Jean-Honore Fragonard, and Francois Boucher. He was influenced by the school of Anne Claude Philippe Caylus and Pierre-Jean Mariette (1694-1774). Between 1779 to 1789, Séroux attempted to complete an encyclopedic book recording the history of art from antiquity to the Italian Renaissance, but publication was delayed by the French Revolution. The book was completed and published posthumously in 1823 by T.-B. Éméric-David. The work remained influential well into the 19th century. Melchior Boisserée used Séroux’s work as an example for his own work.
Selected Bibliography
and Dufourny, Léon; Emeric-David, Toussaint-Bernard; Feuillet, Laurent François; La Salle, Achille Étienne Gigault de. Histoire de l’art part les monuments depuis sa décadence au IVe siècle jusqu’à son renouvellement au XVIe siècle. 6 vols. Paris: Treuttel et Würtz, 1811-1820.
Sources
Kultermann, Udo. Geschichte der Kunstgeschichte: Der Weg einer Wissenschaft. Vienna and Düsseldorf: Econ, 1966. 2nd ed., p. 152; Bazin, Germain. Histoire de l’histoire de l’art; de Vasari à nos jours. Paris: Albin Michel, 1986, pp. 87-8; The Dictionary of Art.