Lot 55: 

BAILLY, Jacques (1629-1679) and ?JARRY, Nicolas (1615-1670), Sur le Renouvellement de l'Alliance entre la France et les Suisses, in French and Latin, ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT LEAF ON VELLUM
[Paris, 1663-1668]
385 x 260mm. In gouache and gold, the French in a fine Roman script, the Latin in italics, framed within a border of liquid gold, the emblem with the Arms of Switzerland and France and the motto 'Amplexa tegunt', prefaced by a paragraph of explanation: 'Deux mains qui se tiennent enlacées, sont les Armes des Suisses, comme les Lis sont celles de la France. Ainsi pour donner à connoistre que ces peuples doivent attendre toute sorte de protection de la France, tant qu'ils seront alliez avec elle. On a representé deux mains qui sont a couvert des Lis qu'elles embrassent, avec ce mot: Amplexa Tegunt', and followed by a Distichon: 'Lilia si geminis amplectimur aurea palmis Ne mirere sub is foedera tuta manent'. Provenance: LOUIS XIV (1638-1715), King of France, from a series painted between 1663 and 1668 by Jacques Bailly on the order of Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1619-1683) for Louis's private collection -- Lord Cawdor, 19th century -- Acquired from Ars Libri, 1984.

The leaf is from a set of emblems commissioned to celebrate and commemorate the many triumphs and virtues of the Sun King Louis XIV. Twenty-four other leaves from the same emblem book have been identified: twelve are now in the Getty Museum, Mss 11 and 11a, ten at the Houghton Library (Ms Typ 699) and two others are at the Morgan Library (Ms M.1076.1-2). The series is closely related to Ms fr. 7810 in the Bibliothèque nationale de France, illuminated by Bailly after designs for royal tapestries (see also Sandra Sider, Bibliography of Emblematic Manuscripts, 1992, p.38). The text is by Amable de Bourséis (1606-1672), Abbot of Saint-Martin-de-Cores, one of the founding members of the Académie Française and placed by Colbert at the head of the Académie des inscriptions. The elegant, handsome script is likely by Nicolas Jarry, the most celebrated exponent of the 17th-century French school of calligraphy.

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