Ancient CyprusAncient Cyprus

Draughtsman / artist · Museum staff

Jean-Baptiste Muret

1795–1866 · France

Draughtsman at the Cabinet des Médailles in Paris from 1830 to 1866 whose album drawings preserve the earliest Cypriot pieces in the Cabinet and Ludwig Ross's statuettes in Berlin.

Biography

Some of the first Cypriot antiquities in the Paris Cabinet des Médailles survive in the drawings of Jean-Baptiste Muret, a draughtsman of the Cabinet. Born in 1795, he entered the Cabinet in December 1830 as an employé dessinateur, became an employé de 1re classe in 1859 and bibliothécaire in 1863, and died in February 18661. He also painted watercolours and illustrated books, among them a lithographed Faust1. His son Ernest Muret (1824-1884) joined the Cabinet in 1857 as a numismatist of Gaulish coins, and one footnote credits the father with nearly 10,000 entries of the Cabinet's catalogue of antiquities made under Charles Lenormant1.

His drawings of antiquities from the Cabinet, the Louvre, provincial museums and private collections were bound in 1882 as eleven volumes titled Monuments antiques dessinés par J.B. Muret, each of 160 to 200 sheets and stamped "Bibliothèque Impériale"1,3. Volume I includes Cypriot pieces from the mission of Louis de Mas Latrie and one statuette given to the Cabinet by Félicien de Saulcy on 5 May 18511. Amandry, Hermary and Masson reproduced several of these drawings in 19871.

The same volume contains drawings of Cypriot statuettes that Ludwig Ross had brought to the Berlin museum. Masson and Hermary say that Muret made them under the Second Empire, for documentation, from the engravings published by Gerhard in 1846 and Lajard in 18491,2.

Life and work

  1. December 1830
    Entered the Cabinet des Médailles as 'employé dessinateur' and spent his whole career there.

    ParisAmandry et al. 1987

  2. 1840s – 1860s
    Drew antiquities of the Cabinet and of other museums and private collections in eleven volumes (Monuments antiques dessinés par J.B. Muret, bound 1882; sheets bear the stamp 'Bibliothèque Impériale'). Volume I contains several of the early Cypriot pieces (Mas Latrie series, one statuette given by Félicien de Saulcy in 1851) which the 1987 authors reproduce as his drawings.

    ParisAmandry et al. 1987

  3. 1852–1866
    Under the Second Empire drew several of the Cypriot statuettes brought by L. Ross to the Berlin museum, after engravings by Gerhard and Lajard, as documentary copies, not from the objects.

    ParisMasson & Hermary 1988

Connections

2 people

Colleagues & contacts

Sources

  1. 1.M. Amandry, A. Hermary, O. Masson (1987). “Les premières antiquités chypriotes du Cabinet des Médailles et la mission Mas Latrie en 1845-1846”. Cahiers du Centre d'Études Chypriotes 8, 3-15. Online
  2. 2.O. Masson, A. Hermary (1988). “Le voyage de Ludwig Ross à Chypre en 1845 et les antiquités chypriotes du Musée de Berlin”. Cahiers du Centre d'Études Chypriotes 9, 3-10. Online
  3. 3.J.-B. Muret (1882). “Monuments antiques dessinés par J.B. Muret (11 vols, bound 1882)”. Cabinet des Médailles, Paris.