Hippolyte Mireur

By its breath and wealth of descriptive details such as a painting's dimensions or a stamp's state of conservation, it also brings a precise knowledge of the early period of the emerging art market in Europe, including trends and collectors’ preferences, which the author presents in his introduction.

The Dictionary is considered as a unique research tool and a critical source to certify the origins of artworks listed by its author, including for some of the most famous artists in the world history of art “at a time when their works did not carry today’s exceptional prestige when coming to the market.”[3] Hence the Dictionary indicates a stunning list of 120 transactions of Leonardo da Vinci's paintings, and many more for contemporaries who went on to become among the most prestigious artists in the world like Camille Pissarro.

[6] The proceeds of the sale amounting to 108 thousand French francs financed a small team of researchers to collect information and edit the seven volumes over the following ten years.

While it included a few pieces from famous names like Greuze or Sisley, it mostly entailed works (nearly a hundred)[7] of Adolphe Monticelli, a local painter whom Mireur seems to have supported actively and "for whom there was an unaccountable enthusiasm in avant-garde circles at the time".

[10] Known for its urban and architectural accomplishments in Paris, the then finishing Second Empire of Napoleon III had also been a fast-developing and innovation age for France's trade and industry, including on the Mediterranean.

Mireur translated into French verses the ancient Greek tragedian Sophocles,[15] which he published in Paris [16] and had played in the antique Roman theater of Frejus, near his Provence estate.