In the nineteenth-century, out of friendship, admiration or loyalty, artists surrounded themselves with the works of their peers, amongst which drawings – intimate and personal objects – held a special place. This catalogue, which accompanies an exhibition at the Frits Lugt Collection, Fondation Custodia, Paris, delves into the heart of these artists’ collections and sheds new light on nineteenth-century drawing in France. 
 
Including paintings and documents, Mes Chers Amis features a selection of remarkable sheets, often gifted or exchanged, bearing witness to the artists’ sense of kinship. Illustrious names – such as Théodore Gericault, Honoré Daumier, and James Whistler – stand next to lesser-known ones. The collections met with different fates after the deaths of their owners: some were preserved and bequeathed to museums, for instance that of Pierre-Jean David d’Angers, now in Angers; others were dispersed at public auction, like the best known and most admired example, the collection of Edgar Degas. 
 
From the French Academy in Rome at the Villa Medici, where the first friendships between winners of the Prix de Rome were forged, to Paris studios, the catalogue explores these networks of artists. Some collected the works of their masters, others those of their friends, giving rise to collections marked by loyalty and admiration. Two key figures form the core of the book: Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres and Eugène Delacroix. Their works, carefully kept by peers, are testament to their enduring influence and the fascination they held for their contemporaries. 
 
Mes Chers Amis brings together nearly 100 works, drawn from several public and private collections, notably the Musée du Louvre and the Musée d’Orsay, as well as from The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and numerous French institutions, such as the museums in Angers, Besançon and Rouen. The catalogue offers an opportunity to explore the various social circles and the personalities of the featured artist-collectors, born between the last third of the eighteenth century and the first half of the following century.