The catalogue presents a selection of approximately seventy drawings from the Schlossmuseum and the Goethe-Nationalmuseum in Weimar, Germany. A number of these sheets were once in the private collection of the renowned poet, novelist, playwright, and philosopher Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) or were collected by Grand Duke Carl August of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, whom Goethe served as privy councilor from 1776.

Assembled with Goethe's encouragement, the duke's collection of drawings was intended to survey the history of European art and provide aspiring artists with models from which to learn.

The catalogue includes drawings by Jacques Callot, Claude Lorrain, Charles Le Brun, Jacques Bellange, Simon Vouet, Antoine Watteau, François Boucher, Charles Natoire, Jean-Baptiste Greuze, and Charles-Louis Clérisseau, among others, and both shed new light on the individual oeuvres of these artists as well as deepened the viewer's understanding of their practice as draftsmen within the context of other French masters.