Note 83 — OF A BIOGRAPHY PAINTED.

The Duke’s description is not to be found, as might be expected, in his own valued catalogue, but was a contribution to Gaignat’s, ii. 16, where it occupies fourteen pages. This singular work sold at Gaignat’s sale for 902 livres. It was then the golden age of literary curiosity, when the rarest things were not ruinous; and that price was even then considered extraordinary, though the work was an unique. It must consist of about 180 subjects, by Italian artists.