Main Content
Summary
Author: (Cabinet du Roi)
Title: Les plaisirs de l’isle enchantée, ou les festes et divertissements du Roy, à Versailles, divisez en trois journées, et commencéz le 7me jour de May, de l’année 1664 (caption beneath first plate) ; (Les divertissemens de Versailles .... au retour de la conqueste de la Franche-Comté en l’année MDCLXXIV) ; (La feste de Versailles, du 18e Juillet mil six cens soixante-huit).
Publication: (Paris, 1673, 1676, 1679 ) (but eighteenth-century restrikes).
Price: £3,850
Reference: 07863
Full Description
Large oblong folio. 3 items in 1. 9 engraved plates ; 6 engraved plates (two of which are misbound between plate 6 and plate 7 of the first item) ; 5 engraved plates. They are accompanied by a leaf of late eighteenth century or early nineteenth manuscript text in Italian describing the contents of the volume. Late 18th century or early 19th century quarter morocco, marbled boards (an Italian binding), worn at spine and outer corners. Three shelfmarks inside front cover, very possibly those of the library of Holland House, although Lord Holland’s customary accompanying bookplate is absent. Some slight browning at outer blank margins of plates.
Three celebrated suites of engravings illustrating the three principal open-air parties held in the grounds of the palace of Versailles between 1664 and 1674 and providing a vivid record of the cultural aspirations of Louis XIV and his court. The engravings were originally issued as separate suites in the 1670s, with accompanying text written by Louis XIV’s court historiographer André Félibien des Avaux, but they are more familiar in this collected form, without text and printed off from the original copper plates in or after 1727. Each of these parties were extravagant entertainments spread over a number of days, involving music, ballet, feasting, fireworks and theatrical performances, and for historians of the theatre there is the additional bonus that the celebrations in 1664 included the first performance of Molière’s play La Princesse d’Elide (illustrated on plate 7 of the first suite), while those in 1674 included performances of Lully’s Alceste and Molière’s La Malade Imaginaire (illustrated on plates 1 and 3 of the second suite). The plates in the first suite were drawn and engraved by Israel Silvestre, while all but one of those in the subsequent suites are signed as drawn and engraved by Jean Le Pautre, although they were in fact based by Le Pautre on more nearly contemporary drawings by Le Brun, Bérain and others. BAL Cat 518L.