The book series “The Académie Royale Art Collection” explores the history, composition, and arrangement of the art collection of the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture, aiming to bridge a century-long gap in its study. 

From its founding in 1648 to its dissolution in 1793, the Académie royale amassed a collection of more than 15,000 artworks: reception pieces, donated artworks, commissioned portraits of the Académie’s patrons, paintings and bas-reliefs awarded the Prix de Rome, académie drawings by students and professors, plaster casts of classical sculptures, and other objects used in academic life and teaching. Today, these works provide valuable insights into the aesthetic canons, educational practices, and behind-the-scenes networks of the Académie. 

The series opens with a volume dedicated to reception pieces, which, throughout its century-and-a-half history, remained the conceptual core of the collection. Embodying the Académie’s admission practices and internal hierarchies, reception pieces are key to understanding the collection as a whole, as well as fascinating and often overlooked objects of study in their own right. In this volume, Hannah Williams, Melissa Hyde, Catherine Girard, Mark Ledbury, Susanna Caviglia, Yuriko Jackall, Alden Gordon, and Antoine Gallay explore the role of reception pieces for the Académie, the academicians, and beyond.