The article is an overview of the growth of an interest in painting, from the mid-sixteenth to the mid-nineteenth century, among a public not much involved in either the production or purchase of works of art. For the earlier period the main evidence is provided by guidebooks and other publications of a more general type, especially in Italy, which often incorporated the names of leading artists, but seldom provided information about their careers or where their works could be seen. This (...) situation only began to change in a significant way in the second half of the seventeenth century. From that time onwards a new type of publication appeared, that is to say catalogues of major collections of paintings usually open to members of the public. This development was particularly evident in Germany and later in Austria. Such publications rarely included much historical or chronological information about the artists themselves, and the collections were only rarely arranged on geographical or chronological lines, a practice at first mainly confined to early paintings which previously had rarely been displayed at all. A more didactic and historical approach to display and to the compilation of museum catalogues only emerged from around 1850, after Frédéric Villot, curator of paintings at the Louvre, created the model for a new type of catalogue intended both as a contribution to art-historical knowledge and as a source of information for visitors. (shrink)