The Spencer Album of Marcantonio Raimondi Prints in the John Rylands Library

This article and checklist present the contents of the Spencer Album of
Marcantonio Raimondi prints, long considered to be lost. By examining its
composition and tracing its provenance from the Spencer collection at Althorp
House to the John Rylands Library, Manchester, we offer new insight into how
attitudes toward Marcantonio Raimondi’s work evolved during the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries, particularly in Great Britain. Our article also explores
Victorian collecting practices and the importance of the graphic arts for Mrs
Rylands’s vision for the Library to be dedicated to her late husband’s memory.