A Descriptive Catalogue (With Remarks And Anecdotes Never Before Published In English) Of Some Pictures, Of The Different Schools, Purchased For His Majesty The Late King Of Poland; Which will be exhibited early in 1802, At the Great Room, No. 3, In Berners-Street, The third Door on the right, from Oxford-Street. By Noel Desenfans, Esq. Late Consul General Of Poland, In Great-Britain. Vol. I. Containing the Italian, Venetian, Spanish, and French Schools. (Vol. II. Containing the German, Flemish, Dutch, and English Schools.) Second Edition, Revised And Corrected.

The concluding note in Volume II mentions that, since the first edition 'published, about three weeks since' some artists had 'written to reproach us with an intention of injuring them in their profession', Desenfans will now 'say a few words in our own justification'.

Desenfans had come to Britain in 1769, where he married and set up as a picture-dealer. In 1790 on behalf of the King of Poland he began assembling a collection of paintings by Rembrandt, Veronese, Vernet, Raphael, Rubens and others, but in 1795, with the partition of Poland, this collection was left on his hands. He offered the collection to the Emperor of Russia, and in 1799 published a Plan for establishing some national galleries in Britain, of which his collection might perhaps form a basis - but in vain. The sale exhibition of 1802 was no more successful - and in the catalogue Desenfans chose to praise French connoisseurship and condemn British dealers. After Desenfans' death his wish that these works should be publicly exhibited led to much of it passing to Dulwich College, London; where John Soane designed a gallery to exhibit it and a mausoleum to house the remains of its collector.