Pierre-François Hugues d'Hancarville

The 'Antiquities' shown and discussed in these volumes are nearly all ancient Greek vases, collected from Herculaneum, Pompeii and other parts of south Italy and Greece.

Hamilton and Hugues intended this collection of vases not only to provide models for contemporary designers but also, because of their great number, to serve as a help in tracing the historic development of the 'stiles of the different periods in the Art of the Ancients' (vol.

The four volumes of the Antiquites, printed by Francesco Morelli and copiously illustrated (and with many copies hand-painted), form one of the most beautiful books ever made.

Their illustrations were directly copied by Josiah Wedgwood and other pottery manufacturers, and fostered the Neoclassical taste for outline drawing and engraving adopted by John Flaxman and others.

Hancarville also produced two pornographic volumes under fictitious imprints: These were widely pirated, in variously incompetent editions, during his lifetime.