DETROIT — DuMouchelles’ July 19 sale included a collection of Grand Tour plaster intaglios and cameos by Paoletti of Rome. The firm, based on the Piazza di Spagna in Rome until 1847, specialized in the creation of these miniature impressions of ancient cameos, coins, medals, and sculptures — known in Italian as impronte — housed in boxes fashioned as books with marbled covers and gilt-tooled leather bindings. They were designed to be portable museums of the history of classical and Renaissance art, reminding the owner of the famous works they had seen while touring Italy.

Bartolomeo Paoletti (1757-1834) was succeeded in business by his son, Pietro Paoletti (1801-1847). An advertisement placed in Count Hawks Le Grice’s 1841 guide Walks though the Studii of the Sculptors at Rome reads as follows: ‘Paoletti begs to inform the public that he has arranged a collection of impressions (Impronte in Scajola) of many of the works in sculpture executed by distinguished artists … Although the Impronte are but miniature copies; yet they exhibit all the fidelity and beauty of the original and convey to the eye a better idea of sculpted works of art than the most finished engravings.’

The collection presented at DuMouchelles on July 19 numbered 12 volumes — a larger group than most that come to auction. Each of the 369 oval and round white plaster impronte is numbered and identified in a handwritten ledger that appears on the covers. The faux volumes with spines marked Paoletti Impronte were variously titled Museo Vaticano, Musei de Napoli, Opere Thorvaldsen, Opere Canova, Opere Diverse, and Musie Diversi.

The set was consigned from the estate of the collector Leon Zielinski (1935-2023) of Centerline, Michigan. Estimated at $2,000-$4,000, they were hammered down to a LiveAuctioneers bidder at $13,000, or $16,770 with buyer’s premium.