How one global collection of Old Master prints was created: Nine albums by the Sadeler family in the Baillieu Library of the University of Melbourne

This essay examines the early developments of the University of Melbourne's print collection focusing on the acquisition of nine albums of prints by the Sadeler family, once owned by English aristocratic collector and arts patron Elizabeth Saymour Percy, 1st Duchess of Northumberland. Completed in 1962 through Colnaghi, the purchasing of the Sadeler volumes was undertaken on the advice of the University of Melbourne's Herald Chair of Fine Arts, Professor Joseph Burke, and funded by donations from a group of Australian philanthropists: the Society of Collectors. Comprising more than 1200 prints, the albums represent one of the world's largest gatherings of Sadeler engravings and are expression of two separate collecting moments: seven of the volumes once formed part of the legendary collection of Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford; the remaining two were assembled by the Duchess, with a peculiar technique that is unprecedented in eighteenth century print collecting.