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Lot Essay
The coat-of-arms has been identified as that of the de Gaillard family, alias de Gallard, who acquired the fiefdom of Vaucocour on 1 April 1730. In 1789 two members of the de Gaillard family, Jean Gaillard, chevalier et seigneur de Vaucoucour and Jean-Jacques Gaillard, habituant de Vaucoucour, paid the expected fees to have the family elected into the Order of the Nobility (A. de Boulazac, Armorial de la Noblesse du Prigord, 1891, vol. 1, p. 506.). If this identification is correct, it would seem probable that the frieze centered by the de Gaillard family coat-of-arms dates from the mid-18th Century, when the family had acquired and were in the process of redecorating the Chteau de Vaucocours. However, it has been suggested in the past that these arms may be those of an antecedent of the 18th Century Gaillards, who was a Martial and Procurator of the Parliament in Toulouse and is mentioned in an act dated 22 March 1553 (records of the Haute Garonne, series B.46, fo.285).
The particularly recondite iconography of this frieze, depicting Hercules Gallicus, is dependant upon Lucian who wrote of the Gauls during the second century A.D. (E. Wind, "'Hercules' and 'Orpheus': Two Mock-Heroic Designs by Drer," Journal of the Warburg Institute, January 1939, 206-227.). According to Lucian, the Gauls worshiped Hercules not for his physical prowess but instead for his eloquence as an orator. The Gaulish Hercules was a bearded and aged man, wielding a club while leading a merry band of followers by thin chains that linked his lips to their ears. Seen in this light, Hercules was credited with the ability of "enchaining" the ears of his listeners through words - the power of persuasion. While this legend was presumably a literary conceit, it achieved a significant degree of learned popularity among Renaissance artists and humanists throughout Europe during the sixteenth century. Among the earliest who popularized the image were the Basle printer Andreas Cratandrus in his edition of Pomponius Mela's De Orbis Situ of 1522; Geofroy Troy in his own Champ Fleury of 1529; and Alciati's immensely popular Emblemata of 1583.
The particularly recondite iconography of this frieze, depicting Hercules Gallicus, is dependant upon Lucian who wrote of the Gauls during the second century A.D. (E. Wind, "'Hercules' and 'Orpheus': Two Mock-Heroic Designs by Drer," Journal of the Warburg Institute, January 1939, 206-227.). According to Lucian, the Gauls worshiped Hercules not for his physical prowess but instead for his eloquence as an orator. The Gaulish Hercules was a bearded and aged man, wielding a club while leading a merry band of followers by thin chains that linked his lips to their ears. Seen in this light, Hercules was credited with the ability of "enchaining" the ears of his listeners through words - the power of persuasion. While this legend was presumably a literary conceit, it achieved a significant degree of learned popularity among Renaissance artists and humanists throughout Europe during the sixteenth century. Among the earliest who popularized the image were the Basle printer Andreas Cratandrus in his edition of Pomponius Mela's De Orbis Situ of 1522; Geofroy Troy in his own Champ Fleury of 1529; and Alciati's immensely popular Emblemata of 1583.