Vollard Archives

Portrait d'Ambroise Vollard, 1899 (531)

Ambroise Vollard (1866–1939) was an art dealer and a key figure in the late nineteenth century and first decade of the twentieth century. He was a champion of avant-garde art and, in particular, Cezanne’s painting. In November 1895 he mounted a retrospective of works by Cezanne, the artist’s first.

Vollard’s Archives are housed at the Musée d'Orsay, Paris, where they are classified as Fonds Vollard MS 421. The archive includes original correspondence, ledgers, account books, daily agendas, shipping receipts and personal papers.  A large photographic archive is also held at the Musée d’Orsay, Paris, ODO 1996 56

The archival material transcribed here combines the dealer’s stockbooks (A, B and C), a “virtual stockbook” (X) and a partial inventory (W). Photocopies of the stockbooks can be found in John Rewald Papers at the National Gallery Archives, Washington, D.C.

Some original stockbooks are housed at the Wildenstein Institute in Paris.

Stockbook A (1899–ca. April 1904): Inventory numbers 3301–4210 (Wildenstein Institute; photocopy in John Rewald Papers)

Stockbook B (ca. June 1904–December 1907): Inventory numbers 3301–4560 (Vollard Archives; photocopy in John Rewald Papers)

Stockbook C (ca. March 1918–ca. 1922): Inventory numbers 7016–7609 (Wildenstein Institute; photocopy in John Rewald Papers)

Stockbook X (January 1912–end 1912): “Inventory numbers” 5000–5500 (virtual “stockbook” created from Vollard’s agendas, Musée d'Orsay, archives Vollard,  MS 421 [5,8]).

Stockbook W (January 1, 1922–January 5, 1938): Inventory numbers 1–5745 (Wildenstein Institute). N.B. The "purchase date" is an indication of when the work was entered into the inventory; "purchased for" may indicate the value at the time of entry.

Vollard photo archive numbers: these numbers have been carried over from John Rewald’s 1996 catalogue raisonné and were consulted by him at the Wildenstein Institute. The Musée d’Orsay has another set of photographs.

The stockbooks can be sorted by stock number or FWN number.