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Two presentation copies of the Livre de la Conqueste de la Toison d’or (Paris 1563)
In a previous post (link), the provenances of two luxuriously bound, presentation copies of a book of engraved prints with the Latin title Hystoria Iasonis (Paris 1563) were investigated. This work was published simultaneously in French translation, entitled Livre de la Conqueste de la Toison d’or, par le Prince Jason de Tessalie: faict par figures avec exposition d’icelles, and copies of it also were bound for presentation. Two such copies of the French edition, presented respectively to Charles de Guise, Cardinal de Lorraine (1524-1574), and to his young nephew, Henri I de Lorraine, duc de Guise (1550-1588), are discussed below.
Neither the Latin nor the French edition bears the name of a printer or publisher, and it can be assumed that the costs of production, including those of binding multiple copies for presentation, were paid by Jean (Jehan) de Mauregard, who subscribed the dedication to the thirteen-year-old King Charles IX, at Paris, on 3 July 1563, and is named as holder of the copyright (a six-year royal privilege, granted at Gaillon in Normandy, 14 July 1563, by Martial de Loménie, Secrétaire des finances du roi). Mauregard presents himself in the dedication as the initiator of the enterprise, explaining to the sovereign that having been struck by the tale of Jason’s capture of the Golden Fleece, he became determined to present it to him in graphic form. He claims to have commissioned the Flemish painter and designer Léonard Thiry and the printmaker René Boyvin of Angers, and in order “to clarify the truth and disentangle the fabulousness from pure history” procured from the Parisian scholar Jacques Gohory a résumé of the story and descriptive quatrains for each plate.1 Mauregard professes that no expense was spared in making the book as good as possible, and he discloses a motive: to supply patterns for a series of tapestries woven in gold and silk, or for fresco decoration, in the royal palaces.2
Nothing is known about the ancestry and very little about the life of Jean de Mauregard.3 He is presumed to be the Jean de Mauregard recorded in 1544 as a tax collector, holding the office of “Clerc du receveur du domaine de la ville de Paris”.4 In the privilege of this book, dated 1563, he is identified as clerk of the court and deputy bailiff at Poissy in the Île-de-France (“nostre cher et bien amé Maistre Iehan de Mauregard, Greffier des Prévosté et soubaillie de Poissy”), an office in the gift of the Crown. When his widow, Marguerite Guyot, chose to remarry in 1582, she was recorded in her contract as “veuve de Jean Mauregard, greffier de Poissy, bourgeois de Paris, demeurant rue Saint-Denis”.5 Jean de Mauregard was involved in commerce, but there is no certain indication of his métier.6 In 1574, while the already widowed Marguerite was residing in rue Saint-Denis, under the shop sign of the Chariot d’Or, she contracted with “sieur Laurens, maître tapissier de haute lisse” to make a tapestry representing Adam and Eve expelled from Paradise according to her own pattern.7 Jean had himself, in 1567, commissioned a tapestry from Louis Thieullin, “maître tapissier de haute lisse a Paris”.8 In 1585, Jean’s brother Robert issued a receipt to the Receveur de la ville de Paris for the defunct’s income from sumptuous fabrics (“draps d’or et d’argent, toiles d’or et d’argents et soies”).9 Whether he is also the “Jehan Mauregard, esguilletier” (a needlemaker for the garment industry), in the rue d’Ablon (Saint-Marcel), who in 1550 was embroiled in a court case, and in 1552 took on an apprentice, is uncertain.10 If Jean de Mauregard should have been both a merchant supplying materials and a consumer of luxury textiles, his publication of an album of tapestry designs, the Livre de la Conqueste de la Toison d’or, becomes less of an enigma.
Contracts which might reveal the date of conception and the conditions under which the Livre de la Conqueste was produced have not been discovered. While Jean de Mauregard surely contracted with the printmaker René Boyvin to engrave and print the twenty-six plates, and with a printer to provide letterpress text, his claim in the book’s dedication to have commissioned the drawings from the designer Léonard Thiry is dubious.11 Thiry had entered the Fontainebleau studios of Rosso Fiorentino and Primaticcio about 1536 and his drawings for L’Histoire de Jason can be dated on stylistic grounds to the first half of the 1540s.12 The draughtsman returned home in the late 1540s and died in Antwerp ca 1550. The Parisian printmaker Pierre Milan, a specialist in engraving paintings and drawings by the Fontainebleau artists, acquired about this time a substantial number of Thiry’s drawings. Many were engraved and published by Milan, anonymously, as single prints or in series, including one series of twelve vases, another of twenty panels ornamented with pagan deities, and a suite of twenty-four fantastical masked male and female heads. Milan shared some of this work with René Boyvin, who had commenced his career in the Mint at Angers, and on 10 November 1549 contracted to serve for a period of two years in Milan’s workshop.13 When in 1553 Boyvin agreed with Guillaume Morlaye, “bourgeois de Paris,” to complete two unfinished matrices of Pierre Milan, and to supply impressions of each, he gave as his address Milan’s own, rue Portefoin, près des Enfants Rouges.14
Were Thiry’s L’Histoire de Jason drawings brought to Boyvin by Jean de Mauregard? Or were they within the group of Thiry’s drawings, which Milan and Boyvin had been exploiting for years? When did Boyvin engrave the plates? Since none of the prints Milan and Boyvin produced together bears an excudit, and Boyvin has signed all but one of these engravings (most with his “RB” monogram, the last lettered “Leonardus thiri. inuē Renatus. F.”), it appears that he undertook this project alone, probably after 1557, the presumed year of Pierre Milan’s death. If the L’Histoire de Jason drawings were in the Milan-Boyvin workshop, then the Livre de la Conqueste did not have a prolonged gestation,15 but one of (at most) a couple of years. By 1557, Boyvin had engaged as an apprentice Laurent Penni, son of the Florentine-born painter Luca Penni, who had worked beside Rosso Fiorentino, Primaticcio, and Thiry at Fontainebleau,16 and by 1562, he had established a workshop in a “corps d’hôtel” on the rue du Temple.17
What could a clerk of the court of Poissy hope to obtain by publishing this series of engraved drawings? A few wealthy individuals were then financing the publication of prints, not as a profession, but as an ancillary activity. One was Claude Bernard, a clerk of the court of Provins (Seine-et-Marne), with whom Pierre Milan and René Boyvin had a long association. But the huge quantity of prints in Bernard’s possession at his death (inventoried by Boyvin, 3 September 1557) appear to have been collateral for loans Bernard had extended; Bernard was not the initiator of any publication, and the matrices and impressions he held were not a publisher’s stock.18 The known facts of the Livre de la Conqueste in no wise fit that model, nor is there evidence that Jean de Mauregard’s motive was the ordinary, commercial one, of recouping the expenses of materials and labour and realising a profit through sales. An indication of what he hoped to accomplish with the Livre de la Conqueste is provided by a small number of copies which were specially bound, at Mauregard’s order, or even under his supervision, for presentation.19 They are a manifestation of the suggestion Mauregard makes in the dedication of his book, that the engravings might well serve as models for a set of woven tapestries, or else for a cycle of wall paintings, to decorate a palatial residence.
Although the Livre de la Conqueste is dedicated to Charles IX, Mauregard may have had another patron in mind when it was conceived, perhaps Henri II (reigned 31 March 1547-10 July 1559). Henri II took a very active interest in tapestries: in 1550, he purchased in Brussels the twenty-six piece L'histoire de Psyché (praised in Mauregard’s preface) and commissioned an eight-piece set of the L’Histoire de Diane from a Parisian workshop; in 1551, he founded a tapestry workshop at the Hôpital de la Trinité in Paris; and at the time of his death, the cartoons for a L’histoire de Samson were being painted. The fifteen-year-old François II who became king after the accidental death of his father had no opportunity to commission tapestries (reigned 10 July 1559-5 December 1560). Charles IX ascended the throne on 5 December 1560, aged ten. Several months later, his mother Catherine de’ Medici, obtained the position of regent, and she still exercised sweeping powers on the date Mauregard received the privilege for his book. Catherine also had a strong interest in tapestries, but insufficient resources. She was unable to realise either of two projects proposed to her in the early 1560s by Nicholas Houel and the court artist Antoine Caron: L’Histoire de la Royne Arthémise (the designs were not woven until after her death), and L’Histoire françoyse de nostre temps (never executed); however, Catherine later was responsible for commissioning the so-called Valois tapestries.20
If Jean de Mauregard gave copies of his book to Charles IX or to Catherine de’ Medici, or to members of the Valois-Angoulême court, those volumes are either lost, or unrecognizable. The recipients of four presentation copies are identifiable: two received the French edition, and two the edition with Latin text. The bindings on the two copies of the French edition are dissimilar, however they appear to have a tool in common,21 and were likely bound in the same shop. Their covers are decorated respectively with the arms of Charles de Guise, Cardinal de Lorraine (1524-1574),22 and of Henri I de Lorraine, duc de Guise (1550-1588).23 The two copies of the Latin edition are in dissimilar “architectural bindings,” but appear to have been made in the same shop. One is adorned with the heraldic insignia of Nicolas Dangu as abbé de Juilly (d. 1567), and the other with the arms of Vincenzo Lauro (1523-1592).24 Two more bindings (both on copies of the French edition) survive in luxurious bindings, but have no recognizable sign of original ownership. One binding (New York, Morgan Library & Museum, 18683) was studied by Paul Needham, who speculated that it was produced in the shop that bound Lauro’s copy.25 The other (Brussels, KBR, VB 5.434 151 C RP) was examined by Paul Culot, who assigned it also to the shop responsible for Lauro’s copy.26 The binding in Brussels is decorated to a pattern very similar to the Cardinal de Lorraine’s copy, and features the same pair of cornucopia cornerpieces. The decoration in the centres is obliterated, however the outlines of the centrepiece once on the lower cover appear to match the one on the Cardinal’s binding.
Top Details from the binding for the Cardinal de Lorraine
Middle Details from the binding for the duc de Guise
Bottom Details from Brussels, KBR, VB 5.434 151 C (RP)
Top Details from the binding for the Cardinal de Lorraine
Bottom Details from Brussels, KBR, VB 5.434 151 C (RP)
By the time of publication, the powerful and extremely wealthy Charles Cardinal de Lorraine had gained a reputation for his taste and lavish patronage of the arts. He had purchased in 1552 from the Duchesse d’Étampes, Anne de Pisseleu, the Château de Meudon, and for the next eight years it was embellished and renovated according to designs by Primaticcio. Also in 1552, he acquired from the widow of Jean Duval, treasurer to François I, the Château de Dampierre, which was decorated in 1556-1558 by Francesco Salviati. Although the Cardinal de Lorraine is now known for purchasing, gifting, and receiving tapestries, not for commissioning them, he would have been seen by Mauregard as a prime target for solicitation. He had purchased in 1552 from the Duchesse d’Étampes a twelve-piece tapestry woven in Brussels representing the twelve months of the year. In the early 1570s, the Cardinal de Lorraine donated a six-piece L’Histoire du Clovis to Reims Cathedral; and about the same time he received as a gift from Catherine de’ Medici a twelve-piece tapestry set (the so-called Hunts of Maximilian).
The Cardinal de Lorraine and his elder brother François de Lorraine, 2nd duc de Guise, played political roles of foremost importance for decades, in particular during the short reign of François II, when they acted as joint regents, Charles as head of finance, justice, and diplomacy, and François as head of the army. François’s eldest son, Henri, had been sent at the age of seven to the Collège de Navarre, where he was briefly schooled, before his father removed him to learn the profession of arms. He was twelve years old when his father was assassinated (24 February 1563) and he became the 3rd duc de Guise, inheriting his titles of Grand Maître de France and Gouverneur de Champagne. Mauregard’s book was published several months later, and Henri was given a copy with his ducal arms painted on both covers.27 Until he reached his majority (September 1568) Henri remained in the wardship of the Cardinal de Lorraine. So it seems that Mauregard’s gift to the young man was an indirect approach to a patron he hoped to beguile, the Cardinal de Lorraine. Mauregard’s dedication of the book to the young Charles IX, likewise, may have been a guise to attract the attention of Catherine de’ Medici.
While no tapestries based on Thiry’s drawings were ever woven, Boyvin’s engravings made Thiry’s compositions known to artisans working in another medium. A set of painted Limoges enamel plates was produced ca 1568 by Pierre Reymond for Jean Jacques II de Mesmes (each plate copies a single print, with a number on each corresponding to the number of the print to which it relates),28 eight prints were used as models for a casket made ca 1575-1577 by Léonard Limousin, and the enameller Jean de Court also found inspiration in Boyvin’s engravings.
1. “… pour en esclaircir la verité et y demesler la fabulosité d’avec la pure histoire” (dedication).
2. “… ny espargnant ne les frais ne la sollicitude, en esperance de vous en faire present qui pourroit estre agreable, fust pour la lecture du livre ou par-aventure pour patron de quelque tapisserie à orner un jour les sales de vos magnifiques palais (à l’enuy de celle que vous y avez si belle et si riche de la fable de Psyche) ou pour une peinture exquise à enrichir quelque galerie” (dedication).
3. He perhaps is to be identified with the “Jean de Mauregard” who in March 1538 was bailli (a royal agent, primarily as a judicial officer) at Lisieux; see “Layettes du Trésor des Chartes ancienne série des ‘Sacs’ (dite ‘Supplément’) J 736 à J 1053” (Inventaire analytique par Henri de Curzon, 1911-1917; dactylographié par Alain Ganeval), J 968 no. 32 [link]. This individual asserted in 1540 his descent from Nicolas Mauregard, “conseiller du Roi et trésorier de France”; see P.E.M. Labbey de la Roque, Recherche faite en 1540, par les élus de de Lisieux, des nobles de leur élection (Caen 1827), p.51 no. 127 [link].
4. Hélène Gasnault, Léonard Thiry (ca. 1500-ca. 1550) dans l’ombre de Rosso, thèse d’École des Chartes, 2011, Pièces justificatives (“Mandement pour le paiement de Jean de Mauregard, clerc du receveur du domaine de la ville de Paris (12 août 1544).” [link]. École nationale des Chartes, Positions des thèses soutenues par les élèves de la promotion 2011 pour obtenir le diplôme d’archiviste paléographe (Paris 2011), pp.147-154.
5. Archives nationales, Châtelet de Paris, Y//123. Insinuations (26 juin 1581-15 juin 1582), fol. 366 V° [link]. Marguerite married Claude Louvet, “bourgeois de Paris, demeurant rue Saint-Denis, près la paroisse Saint-Sauveur”. She died before 8 January 1591; see Idem, Inventaires après décès par Jean Chazeretz, 1591-1594, AN ET-I-52 [link; link].
6. Notarial records of some wine transactions suggest ownership of vineyards, not participation in the wholesale wine trade. See Jean-Joseph Marquet de Vasselot, “La Conquête de la Toison d’Or et les émailleurs limousins du XVIe siècle” in La Revue de l’art ancien et moderne 24 (1913), pp.241-253 (pp.243-244 [link]), citing Paul Guérin, Registres des délibérations du bureau de la ville de Paris, Tome sixième 1568-1572 (Paris 1892), p.95 [link]. Compare Gasnault, op. cit. (“Mandement à des fermiers parisiens, dont Jean de Mauregard, de fournir des garanties (12 et 13 octobre 1568)”) [link]. In 1581, Marguerite gave a receipt to the Receveur de la ville de Paris for a payment relating to the defunct Jean’s vineyards; see Gasnault, op. cit. (“Quittance de Marguerite Guyot, veuve de Jean de Mauregard, au receveur de la ville de Paris, concernant les rentes du défunt sur les fermes du vin (1er avril 1581)”) [link].
7. Archives nationales, Minutes et répertoires du notaire Cléophas Péron, Minutes 1574, MC/ET/XCI/66 (“…pour faire une pièce de tapisserie représentant Adam et Eve chassés du Paradis selon le patron qu’elle en a fourni, à faire en bonnes laines françaises rehaussées de trois soies jaune, verte et bleue, moyennant 12 livres tournois l’aune carrée” [link]).
8. Gasnault, op. cit. (“Marché entre Jean Bertrand et Louis Thieullin, maîtres tapissiers à Paris, concernant l’exécution d’une tapisserie pour Jean de Mauregard (21 août 1567)”) [link]. For Louis Thieullin, see Thierry Dufrêne, “La tapisserie de haute lisse à Paris et la question décorative (XVIe siècle)” in Revue d’Histoire Moderne & Contemporaine 37 (1990), pp.88-107 [link].
9. Gasnault, op. cit. (“Quittance de Nicolas de Mauregard, frère de feu Jean de Mauregard, au receveur de la ville de Paris, concernant les rentes du défunt sur les draps d’or et d’argent, toiles d’or et d’argents et soies (26 juin 1585)”) [link].
10. Ernest Coyecque, Recueil d’actes notariés relatifs à l’histoire de Paris et de ses environs au XVIe siècle, II: 1532-1555 (Paris 1923), p.399 no. 5602; see Archives nationales, Minutes et répertoires du notaire Catherin Fardeau, 23 avril 1549-25 mars 1559 (étude XXXIII), MC/ET/XXXIII/35 [link]. Coyecque, op. cit., p.450, no. 5890; Idem, MC/ET/XXXIII/36 [link].
11. Hélène Gasnault, “Léonard Thiry, de l’estampe au dessin et du dessin à l’estampe: Procédés de la création chez un artiste de la première École de Fontainebleau” in Dessiner pour graver, graver pour dessiner. I, Le dessin dans la révolution de l’estampe (Paris 2012), pp.53-65 (p.54: “Ces propos ne peuvent être acceptés comme tels, au vue d’incohérences entre le texte et l’image et du fait de l’important décalage chronologique entre la mort de Thiry, au plus tard en 1550, et la date de la parution de la suite gravée.”)
12. Thiry’s drawings have mostly survived (twenty-two are in Universiteit Leiden, PK T 1967-1988 [images, link]; three in Paris, École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, M 808-810). They are in horizontal format, framed by highly decorative borders, with the captions appearing on the published engravings (in the hand of Gohory?).
13. Catherine Grodecki, Documents du Minutier central des notaires de Paris, Histoire de l’art au XVIe siècle (1540-1600) (Paris 1986), II, p.222 no. 869. Archives nationales, Minutes et répertoires du notaire Guillaume I Payen, 1549, janvier-1550, 4 avril, MC/ET/XIX/97 [link].
14. Grodecki, op. cit., II, p.220 no. 864. Archives nationales, Minutes et répertoires du notaire Catherin Fardeau, 23 avril 1549-25 mars 1559 (étude XXXIII), MC/ET/XXXIII/38 [link]. See Yves Metman, “Un graveur inconnu de l’École de Fontainebleau: Pierre Millan” in Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance 1 (1941), pp.202-214 (p.204); Séverine Lepape, “The production of prints in France at the time of Hieronymus Cock” in Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art 39 (2017), pp.215-224 (p.221).
15. Cf. Lepape, op. cit., p.222, alleging a gestation of “nearly 15 years”; Paul Needham, Twelve centuries of bookbindings, 400-1600 (New York 1979), p.244, “since Thiry was dead by 1550, this implies that more than a dozen years passed before their eventual publication”.
16. Pierre du Colombier, “Le graveur Laurent Penni” in Humanisme et Renaissance 3 (1936), pp.327-329 (p.327).
17. Michèle Bimbenet-Privat & Fabienne Le Bars, “New Documents on sixteenth-century printmaking in Paris” in Print Quarterly 11 (1994), pp.151-155 (p.154). Boyvin’s Protestant beliefs caused early termination of his eight-year lease, and by 1569 he was living in a single room on rue du Paon.
18. The inventory lists twenty-two copper matrices and several thousands of impressions (including 250 copies of a series of 20 prints); see Metman, op. cit., pp.211-214 (“Extraits de l’Inventaire apres décès de Claude Bernard”).
19. The inference that these are presentation copies and were distributed by Mauregard himself is drawn from the consanguinity of paper stocks used for the letterpress text and for the binder’s endleaves (Troyes, watermarks of Edmond Denise; compare C.-M. Briquet, Les Filigranes, no. 5304). See the discussions of Morgan Library & Museum 15450 (Latin edition) and 18683 (French edition), in Howard Nixon, Sixteenth-century gold-tooled bookbindings in the Pierpont Morgan Library (New York 1971), p.169 (15450: “At each end a pair of paper leaves, one being paste-down. Watermark, crescent and quatrefoil, name edmonddenise (cf Briquet 5304)”), and in Paul Needham, Twelve centuries of bookbindings, 400-1600 (New York 1979), pp.246-247 (18683: “… This paper was also used to print the preliminary leaves of our French copy; its plates are printed on a different paper stock, marked with a shield containing a mermaid and other bearings … It seems probable, therefore, that Mauregard, the entrepreneur of the Toison d’or, procured the paper stock for his project, and supplied sheets as needed to the printer of the text leaves, to René Boyvin, and to the binder of the special presentation copies.”). Anthony Hobson & Paul Culot, Italian and French 16th-century bookbindings (Brussels 1991), p.131 (referring to Needham).
20. Barbara Gaehtgens, “Cathérine de Médicis et L’Histoire françoyse de nostre temps: des tapisseries au service de la régence” in Il mecenatismo di Caterina de’ Medici: poesia, feste, musica, pittura, scultura, architettura (Venice 2008), pp.149-167.
21. Compare Geoffrey D. Hobson, Les reliures à la fanfare: le problème de l’S fermé (London 1935), p.59 Fig. 49a.
22. For these arms, see Joannis Guigard, Nouvel armorial du bibliophile: guide de l’amateur des livres armoriés (Paris 1890), I, pp.317-321 [link]; Henri Jadart, Les Bibliophiles Rémois leurs ex-libris et fers de reliure suivis de ceux de la Bibliothèque de Reims (Reims 1894), pp.10-11 [link]; Manuel de l’amateur de reliures armoriées françaises (Paris 1924), Pl. 49. On the Cardinal’s bibliophily, see Isabelle de Conihout & Pascal Ract-Madoux, “Les reliures du cardinal de Lorraine” in Un fastueux mécène au XVIe siècle, le cardinal de Lorraine et ses livres (Reims 2013), pp.32-47; Isabelle de Conihout, “Les reliures du cardinal de Lorraine: quelques précisions supplémentaires” in Un prélat français de la Renaissance. Le cardinal de Lorraine entre Reims et l’Europe, actes du colloque de Reims, 7-10 novembre 2013 (Geneva 2015), pp.349-361.
23. Guigard, op. cit., I, p.58 (source unidentified) [link]. Cf. Manuel de l’amateur de reliures armoriées françaises, op. cit., Pl. 50 (from a book published 1616: “il s’agit évidemment d’un prix attribué en vertu d’une fondation”). The third duc de Guise is not known as a bibliophile.
24. See the previous post on this website [link].
25. opac Brown morocco gilt, attributed to Charles IX by Gruel of Paris - French XVI century binding [link]. The binding is gold-tooled with a design incorporating palm leaves and pairs of ornamental brackets terminating in scrolls [link]. See Howard Nixon, Sixteenth-century gold-tooled bookbindings in the Pierpont Morgan Library (New York 1971), p.172; Needham, op. cit., pp.244-247 no. 78.
26. opac Reliure de cuir fauve décorée [link]. See Hobson & Culot, op. cit., p.131 (“en reliure décorée sortie du même atelier” [as Morgan Library & Museum, 18683]. The binding of brown goatskin with black onlays is silver-tooled; upper cover, [link]; lower cover, [link].
27. The arms were interpreted by Anthony Hobson as those of Henri’s father (d. 24 February 1563), but from the dates of the dedication and privilege (3 and 14 July 1563) it is certain that the book was presented to the young duke; see A. Hobson, French and Italian collectors and their bindings illustrated from examples in the library of J.R. Abbey (Oxford 1953), p.45.
28. Musée national de la Renaissance, Le dressoir du prince: services d’apparat à la Renaissance ([Ecouen] 1995), pp.108-109.
binding for charles, cardinal de lorraine
Jacques Gohory (1520-1576), Livre de la Conqueste de la Toison d’or, par le Prince Iason de Tessalie, faict par figures avec exposition d’icelles (Paris: [Jean de Mauregard], 1563)
Insignia of Charles de Guise, Cardinal de Lorraine (1524-1574)
Parisian binding, 1563, havana goatskin, richly gilt, with arms of Charles, Cardinal de Lorraine, broad border filled with azured floral tools linked by tendrils of single gilt fillets and dots, large corner ornaments of cornucopia design, in central rectangular panel a cartouche surrounding a cardinal’s galero on a gold stippled ground over an inner cartouche with the painted arms of Charles de Lorraine, flat spine decorated with false bands and compartments decorated with gilt hatching, edges plain gilt
Inscription of Pierre Delaplanche (1610-1684)
provenance
● Charles de Guise, Cardinal de Lorraine (1524-1574), armorial supralibros [his executors (as mentioned in his testament, 1 January 1571) were his brother Louis I de Lorraine, Cardinal de Guise, archbishop of Metz (created Cardinal by Julius III, 1553); and his nephew Henri de Lorraine, duc de Guise. Some of his books passed via Louis to the Abbey Saint-Remi de Reims]
● Pierre Delaplanche (de La Planche; 1610-1684), inscription “Delaplanche” on front endleaf [librarian of the Oratoriens de Saint-Magloire, to which he bequeathed his library; compare inscription, link]
● possibly Congrégation de l’Oratoire de Saint-Magloire (1618-1792), but lacking the typical shelfmark and label [compare, link]
● Richard Bull (1725-1805) [see John M. Pinkerton, “Richard Bull of Ongar, Essex” in The Book Collector (1978), pp.41-59]; by family descent, evidently: (1) Elizabeth Bull (1749-1809), daughter of Richard Bull of Ongar, inherited his estate, which on her death passed to her half-brother; (2) Richard Henry Alexander Bennet (d. 1814?), the estate passing on Bennet’s death to his son of the same name; (3) Richard Henry Alexander Bennet (d. 1818), British naval captain and Member of Parliament for Launceston, to his daughter; (4) Julia Lavinia (1772-1867), wife of Sir James Willoughby Gordon, 1st Bt (1772-1851), to their son; (5) Henry Percy Gordon, 2nd Bt (1806-1876), to his daughter; (6) Mary Charlotte Julia Gordon (b. 1840), married in 1865 R.W. Disney Leith, and living at Northcourt Manor, Isle of Wight, to their son; (7) Alexander Henry Leith, 5th Baron Burgh (1866-19 August 1926)
● Sotheby & Co., Catalogue of the valuable library (including part of the collection of fine engravings), formed at the end of the eighteenth century by Richard Bull, Esq. and now removed from Northcourt, Isle of Wight, and sold by order of the owner, the Right Hon. Lord Burgh, London, 28-29 June 1926, lot 243 & folding plate (“finely bound in contemporary brown morocco for Cardinal Guise” [link])
● Bernard Quaritch, London - bought in sale (£110), collation inscription in pencil dated “1/7/26” on endpaper
● Hubert de Ganay, marquis de Ganay (1888-1974), exlibris, initials “H H” flanking a crowned eagle; possibly by descent to Jean-Louis, marquis de Ganay (1922-2013)
● Christie’s Paris, Bibliothèque de Martine de Béhague et des comtes de Ganay. Première partie, Paris, 26 November 2019, lot 58 (“exemplaire relié aux armes de Charles de Lorraine (1524-1574)”) [realised €137,500; sale catalogue, link]
● T. Kimball Brooker, purchased in the above sale [Bibliotheca Brookeriana #3297; to be sold by Sotheby’s in 2024-2025]
literature
Anthony Hobson, French and Italian collectors and their bindings illustrated from examples in the library of J.R. Abbey (Oxford 1953), p.45 (cited in footnote 2, from the Sotheby 1926 sale catalogue, as “a closely similar binding” to Abbey’s Henrici II Galliarum (1560), bound for François, duc de Guise, ca 1560, and described in the Abbey sale catalogue (1965, lot 532 & Pl. 62) as a binding of Claude Picques)
binding for for henri, duc de guise
Jacques Gohory (1520-1576), Livre de la Conqueste de la Toison d’or, par le Prince Iason de Tessalie, faict par figures avec exposition d’icelles (Paris: [Jean de Mauregard], 1563)
Parisian binding, 1563, havana goatskin with tan goatskin inlays in corners and centre, richly gilt, with arms of Henri, duc de Guise painted in centre, broad border filled with azured floral tools linked by tendrils of single gilt fillets and dots, in central rectangular panel a design of interlaced strapwork and volutes, painted black, on a field stippled with gold dots and containing in the interstices azured floral tools, stirrups, quatrefoils, all surrounding a central inlaid oval bearing the painted arms, flat spine, decorated with false bands and compartments decorated with gilt hatching, edges plain gilt
provenance
● Henri I de Lorraine (1550-1588), duc de Guise (dit Le Balafré), armorial supralibros
● William Beckford (1760-1844)
● Alexander Douglas, 10th Duke of Hamilton (1767-1852)
● Sotheby Wilkinson & Hodge, Catalogue of the second portion of the Beckford Library, removed from Hamilton Palace, London, 11-22 December 1882, lot 254 (“brown morocco, covered with gold tooling à petits fers, by N. Eve, gilt edges, with Arms of the Duc de Guise painted on sides” [link])
● Bernard Quaritch, London - bought in sale (£405)
● Librairie Damascène Morgand, Bulletin mensuel, No. 14 – mars 1883 (Paris 1883), item 8247 (“Vendu”; “mar. brun, couvert de riches comp. en mosaïque, riches entrelacs, milieux remplis avec dorure au pointillé, tr. dor. … La magnifique reliure du XVIe siècle qui recouvre cet ouvrage est un des plus beaux spécimens d l’art de cette époque. Au milieu d’un cartouche réservé au centre des plats, se trouvent peintes les armes du duc de Guise”. [link])
● Hippolyte Destailleur (1822-1893)
● Maurice Delestre & Librairie Damascène Morgand, Catalogue de livres rares et précieux provenant de la bibliothèque de feu M. Hippolyte Destailleur, Architecte du Gouvernement, Paris, 13-25 April 1891, lot 1636 [link]
● Librairie Damascène Morgand, Paris - bought in sale (FF 12,500, cf Ernest Quentin-Bauchart, Mélanges bibliographiques: 1895-1903 (Paris 1904), p.152: “acheté 12.500 francs pour M. le duc d’Aumale” [link])
● Maurice Delestre & Damascène Morgand, Catalogue de livres et estampes relatifs aux beaux-arts provenant de la bibliotheque de feu M. H Hippolyte Destailleur, Paris, 21-30 May 1895, lot 1151 (“mar. brun riches comp. en mosaïque, remplis avec dorure au pointillé, tr. dor … Superbe exemplaire du duc Henri de Guise, recouvert d’une admirable reliure en mosaïque du XVIe siècle … Cette reliure est d’une remarquable conservation; elle n’a jamais subi aucune retouche, ni altération”. [link])
● unidentified owner - bought in sale (FF 11,900) [link]
● Robert Hoe (1839-1909)
● Anderson Galleries, Catalogue of the library of Robert Hoe of New York. Part I: A to K, New York, 24-28 April 1911, lot 1505 (“the arms of the family of Guise painted on the centre of both covers” [link]) [RBH 905-1505]
● unidentified owner - bought in sale ($1500) [ABPC 17, p.287; link]]
● Édouard Rahir, Paris
● Étienne Ader, Henri Baudoin & Fernand Lair-Dubreuil, La bibliothèque de feu Édouard Rahir. Première partie: Livres anciens du XVe au XIXe siècle: riches reliures anciennes, la plupart de provenances royales, personnages et amateurs célèbres, Paris, 7 May 1930, lot 99 (“reliure faite pour le Duc de Guise, le Balafré” [link])
● Maggs Bros, London - bought in sale (FF 60,000) [sale report in La Bibliofilía 32 (1930), p.320]
● Edmée Maus (1905-1971)
● Michel Wittock (1936-2020)
● Christie’s Paris, Collection Michel Wittock. Troisième partie, Reliures françaises de la Renaissance, Paris, 7 October 2005, lot 22 [catalogue online, link; RBH 5406-22]
● T. Kimball Brooker, purchased at the above sale [Bibiotheca Brookeriana #3155; to be offered by Sotheby’s in 2024-2025]
literature
Robert Hoe, One hundred and seventy-six historic and artistic bookbindings (New York 1895), no. 36 [link]
Carolyn Shipman, A catalogue of books printed in foreign languages before the year 1600, forming a portion of the library of Robert Hoe (New York 1907), p.206 [link]
Arthur Rau, “Edmée Maus (Contemporary Collectors, XVI)” in The Book Collector 7 (1958), pp.38-50 (illustrated as Pl. III)
Cinq siècles d’ornements dans le décor extérieur du livre, 1515-1983, catalogue succinct des reliures exposées à l’occasion de l’inauguration de la Bibliotheca Wittockiana (Brussels 1983), no. 36
Paul Culot, “Présence d’un bibliophile” in L’Œil: revue d’art mensuelle 348-349 (July-August 1984), pp.34-37 Fig. 9
Anthony Hobson & Paul Culot, Italian and French 16th-century bookbindings (Brussels 1991), no. 54
Paul Culot, “La reliure en Italie et en France” in Bibliotheca Wittockiana, Musea Nostra - 38 (Brussels 1996), p.37 (illustrated)
Maxence Hermant, “Deux livres des ducs de Guise” in Le cardinal de Lorraine et ses livres: un fastueux mécène au XVIe siècle (Reims 2013), pp.66-69 (p.69 Fig. 3)