 The cabinet, in the sense of a small private room for the conservation and display of intimate works of art and for private conversations, rather than a piece of furniture, took a stable shape under Henry IV, who nominated the connoisseur Rascas de Bagarris "garde particulier des médailles et antiques du roi", the "particular guardian of the medals and antiquities of the King".Among the antiquarians and scholars who have had the charge of the , one of the most outstanding was Théophile Marion Dumersan, who began working there in 1795 at the age of sixteen, protected the collection from dispersal by the allies after Napoleon's defeat, and published at his own expense a history of the collection and description, as newly rearranged according to historical principles, in 1838

Earlier printed catalogues of parts of the collection had been published.Pierre-Jean Mariette, urged by the comte de Caylus, published a selection of the royal carved hardstones as volume II of his}.