Lot Essay
The poem 'no man is happy except after death' is from Le second livre des meslanges, « Sonets », by Pierre de Ronsard, published in Paris, 1559. Enamel plaques with a contemporary reference are rare, although a recently acquired enamel at the Limoges Museum from the workshop of Jean Court, depicts the French nobleman Alof de Wignacourt with a text describing the episode of the flight of the Ottomans in 1614.