THE WITT LIBRARY

10-Year Update 1981-1991

Introduction to the Microfiche

This microfiche publication reproduces every image acquired by the Witt Library between 1981 and 1991, as well as any mounts missed during the 1981 microfilming project. The reader is advised to refer to the 1981 microfiche edition of the Witt Library (Emmett Publishing, isbn: 1 869934 28 8) in order to make full use of the research material contained in this publication.

The images on the microfiche have been grouped together in the same national schools as found in the Witt Library. The schools have been filmed in alphabetical order, from Albanian to Yugoslavian. Within each school, the artists have been arranged alphabetically. The artist’s name has been taken from either the folder containing a batch of pictures, or from the mounts themselves. Very occasionally, the artist’s name has been taken instead from the book A Checklist of Painters c1200-1976 Represented in The Witt Library (Mansell, London 1978); the user may therefore find the order at slight variance with the name on a folder or on a mount.

Readers are advised to consult A Checklist of Painters… for a full explanation of the system of arrangement used for artists’ names in the Witt Library; a few guidelines are given below:

• Artists with double-barrelled names have been placed under the first part if the name is hyphenated, and the second if not.

• In the Spanish school, the second part of compound names (e.g. Lucas y Padilla) has been ignored.

• Prefixes such as da, de, ter, van der and von have been ignored, except when the prefix has been incorporated into the surname, (e.g. Delacroix).

• If an artist’s name refers to a town or district, the artist has usually been placed under this Christian name (e.g. Leonardo da Vinci), but there are exceptions (e.g. Correggio).

• When a number of artists have the same surname, an artist with no known initials occurs first, followed by one with just a title. Surnames with initials then occur before ones with full Christian names (e.g. Smith, Smith Captain, Smith A, Smith Albert).

• Artists known only by their initials are to be found in an alphabetical section within each school labeled ‘Monogrammists’ under ‘M’.

• Most schools have a section containing anonymous paintings in the style of the school (e.g. the British school has a section labeled ‘British school’ under ‘B’).

• In the Spanish school, Jimenez may be found under Ximenez.

Please note that there are no cross-references on the microfiche; the user is advised to consider all possible alternatives, including variant spellings and nicknames, when searching for a particular artist.

The work of each artist is often broken down into smaller sections. In filming the mounts we have adhered to the categories found in the Witt Library. Each section is preceded by the folder used by the Library to denote that section.

The microfiche have been numbered from 1 to 5715 on the top right corner. The title strip at the top of each microfiche also gives the school and name of the artist appearing in the first and last frame of the fiche; artists whose work appears on ten or more fiche have been sub-divided. This book reproduces the information given on each title strip. It does not therefore list all the artists present in the microfiche update, but will allow the user to narrow the search for a particular artist down to one fiche of 98 images.

Emmett Publishing would like to thank everyone involved in this project, especially the Witt Librarian and his staff: without their help the microfilming would not have proceeded so successfully.

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