Illmo. D. D. Rogerio Du Plesseis Dno. De Liancourt Marchioni De Montfort, Comiti De La Rocheguion & a. Utriusque Ordinis Christianissimæ Maiestatis Equiti Regiis A Cubiculis Primario. Heroi Virtutum et magnarum artium eximio cultori. Avorum pace belloque præstantium Et ævi melioris decora referenti; Segmenta nobilium signorum et statuarù, Quæ temporis dentem invidium evasere Urbis æternæ ruinis erepta Typis æneis ab se commissa Perpetuæ venerationis monumentum. Franciscus Perrier D. D. D. M.D.C.XXXVIII

From the fifteenth century onwards admiration for realistic representational art had caused an upsurge of interest in Greco-Roman statuary, which came to be regarded in western Europe as the crown not only of sculpture but of all art. Prints of these sculptures were being published by the mid-sixteenth century by Lafreri, Cavaleriis and Aldrovandi; but Perrier's selection (originally issued in 1638), was the first intending to present only the masterpieces. It consists of a hundred prints of fewer than a hundred statues (and one modern one, Michelangelo's Moses); it was supplemented by a volume on bas-reliefs in 1645.

Perrier's collection was emulated by contemporary and later publications, such as those of Bisschop (1668-9), Sandrart (1680), Audran (1683), Bartoli (1693), Maffei (1704), Montfaucon (1719-24), Francesco Piranesi, the Society of Dilettanti (1809-1835) and Clarac (1826-53). But his remained widely used (Flaxman in the 1820s was referring Royal Academy students to Perrier), and it established the canon. Only a few newly-discovered statues attained equal celebrity in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries - works from Hadrian's Villa, Herculaneum and Pompeii and Greece itself, such as the Parthenon marbles and the 'Venus de Milo'.

Admiration for these canonic sculptures prompted a production of marble or bronze copies and casts for royal collections such as those of Francis I in France, Charles I in Britain and Catherine II in Russia, and of cheaper reproductions made by such craftsmen as Josiah Wedgwood, Righetti, Zoffoli, Mrs Coade and Brucciani. Casts of these statues became an important resource in the teaching of art; and collections of ancient statues were a great stimulus to the creation of museums.

No plate is captioned (apart from the double plates 87 and 100); but the two Indices give the conventional names of the statues and the names of the collections in which they were to be found.

Although the date MDCXXXVIII is engraved in the dedication and colophon, the additional publication-lines engraved at the foot of the dedication show this to be a later issue - the last of five issues identified by Robert-Dumesnil (and cited by Brunet). 'Chereau graveur du Roy' (i.e. François Chéreau Senior) died in 1729; his widow (Marguerite) died in 1755.