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Harley MS 4377

Record Id:

040-002050214

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-002050214

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000807.0x0003d9

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 4377

Title:

Charles Perrault, Jean Chapelain, and Jacques Cassagnes, Devises pour les tapisseries du Roy, où sont représentez les quatre Élémens et les quatre Saisons de l’année

Scope & Content:

This manuscript contains the Devises pour les tapisseries du Roi, où sont représentez les quatre Élémens et les quatre Saisons de l’année (Emblems for tapestries of King Louis XIV of France on the themes of the four elements and the four seasons), by Charles Perrault (b. 1628, d. 1703), Jean Chapelain (b. 1595, d. 1674), and Jacques Cassagnes (b. 1636, d. 1679).

The 'devises' (emblems) featured in the borders of the tapestries are based on miniature paintings by Jacques Bailly (b. 1629, d. 1679), Royal Academician and painter to King Louis XIV. The central panels were designed by the French painter Charles Le Brun. (b. 1619, d. 1690). The tapestries were the first set to be wholly designed and executed at the newly established Manufacture Royale de Tapisserie des Gobelins (see Florian Knothe, Tapestry in the Baroque (2007), p. 356).

Two other luxury copies of the work are now Vienna, National Library, Series-nova 24204 and Paris, BnF, ms. fr. 7819.

Contents:

ff. 1r-38v: Charles Perrault, Jean Chapelain, and Jacques Cassagnes, Devises pour les tapisseries du Roi, où sont représentez les quatre Élémens et les quatre Saisons de l’année.

(All the versos in the manuscript are blank).

Decoration:

3 title pages with hand-painted copperplate engravings in colours and gold (ff. 1r, 4r, 21r). 1 frontispiece with a hand-painted copperplate engraving in colours and gold (f. 2r). 2 dedication pages with hand-painted engravings in colours and gold (ff. 3r, 22r). 32 full-page hand-painted engravings in colours and gold; 16 on the theme of the four elements and 16 on the theme of the four seasons, with verses celebrating the virtues of King Louis XIV of France (ff. 5r, 6r, 7r, 8r, 9r, 10r, 11r, 12r, 13r, 14r, 15r, 16r, 17r, 18r, 19r, 20r, 23r, 24r, 25r, 26r, 27r, 28r, 29r, 30r, 31r, 32r, 33r, 34r, 35r, 36r, 37r, 38r).

The manuscript's engravings were executed by the French artist Sebastian Le Clerc (b. 1637, d. 1714).

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-002050214", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 4377: Charles Perrault, Jean Chapelain, and Jacques Cassagnes, Devises pour les tapisseries du Roy, où sont représentez les quatre…" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-002050214

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 4377 : Charles Perrault, Jean Chapelain, and Jacques Cassagnes, Devises pour les tapisseries du Roy, où sont représentez les…

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[4370]/040-002050214

Container:

View / search within Archive / Collection: Harley MS 1-7661

Record Type (Level):

File

Extent:

1 volume

Digitised Content:

Languages:

French

Scripts:

Latin

Start Date:

1669

End Date:

1669

Date Range:

1669

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript

Physical Characteristics:

Material: Paper.

Dimensions: 440 x 310 mm (text space: 350 x 225 mm).

Foliation: ff. 38 (+ 3 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning and at the end); 2 blank paper leaves after f. 1; 1 blank paper leaf after ff. 4, 8, 12, 22, 26, 30, 34.

Script: Humanistic and Humanistic cursive.

Binding: Post-1600. Contemporary red leather with gold tooling, with armorial of king Louis XIV inscribed in black ink in a cursive hand, 'No. sept'; marbled endpapers.

Custodial History:

Origin: France, Central (Paris).

Provenance:

Louis XIV (r. 1643–1715), King of France: his armorial binding.

Thomas Ballard, bookseller and book auctioneer in London; his sale, 20 February 1720/21, lot 68, bought for Edward Harley through Nathaniel Noel (see Diary (1966), I, p. 80 n. 14; Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 62).

The Harley Collection, formed by Robert Harley (b. 1661, d. 1724), 1st earl of Oxford and Mortimer, politician, and Edward Harley (b. 1689, d. 1741), 2nd earl of Oxford and Mortimer, book collector and patron of the arts. Edward Harley bequeathed the library to his widow, Henrietta Cavendish, née Holles (b. 1694, d. 1755) during her lifetime and thereafter to their daughter, Margaret Cavendish Bentinck (b. 1715, d. 1785), duchess of Portland; the manuscripts were sold by the Countess and the Duchess in 1753 to the nation for £10,000 under the Act of Parliament that also established the British Museum; the Harley manuscripts form one of the foundation collections of the British Library.

Information About Copies:

Select digital coverage available for this manuscript; see the Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts, https://bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/.

Publications:

A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), III (1808), no. 4377.

The Diary of Humfrey Wanley 1715-1726, ed. by Cyril Ernest Wright and Ruth C. Wright, 2 vols (London: Bibliographical Society, 1966), I: 1715-1723, p. 80 n. 14.

Cyril Ernest Wright, Fontes Harleiani: A Study of the Sources of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1972), pp. 62, 227.

Marianne Grivel and Marc Fumaroli, Devises pour les tapisseries du roi (Paris: Herscher, 1988).

Laurence Grove, Emblematics and Seventeenth-Century French Literature: Descartes, Tristan, La Fontaine and Perrault (Charlottesville: Rookwood Press, 2000), pp. 154, 178, 256 n. 9.

Florian Knothe, Tapestry in the Baroque: Threads of Splendor (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2007), p. 356.

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)

Names:

Ballard, Thomas, bookseller, fl 1690-1725
Louis XIV, King of France, 1638-1715

Places:

Paris, France