AN IMPORTANT LOUIS XIV ENAMELLED GOLD BOOK COVER

BLOIS, CIRCA 1650

细节

AN IMPORTANT LOUIS XIV ENAMELLED GOLD BOOK COVER
Blois, circa 1650
Rectangular book cover, the hinged lid enamelled with the Virgin Mary, the Infant Jesus and Saints Stephen, Jerome and Maurice, the hinged back cover enamelled with the Holy Family with a Shepherd in a landscape, the three sections of the spine individually enamelled with flowers, the counterenamel of the lid enamelled with flowers in a glass vase on a blue covered table, the counterenamel of the back with a basket of flowers on a red covered table, the two pierced gold clasps enamelled with champlevé flowers, containing a blue silk lined prayer book with gold cut pages titled Officium Beatae Mariae Virginis, Paris, 1603
80 mm. (3.1/8 in.) high

拍品专文

The scene enamelled on the front cover is based on Titian's Madonna and Child with SS. Stephen, Jerome and Maurice of about 1520, now in the Louvre, and includes the extra head of St. Joseph at the left, as shown in Sir Anthony Van Dyck's "Antwerp Sketchbook". Van Dyck saw this picture in the Aldobrandini Collection in Rome. The painting came originally from the Este Collection, Ferrara, but was brought by Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini in 1598 to Rome where it remained in the family until 1665. At that time, it was given by the actual owner, Prince Pamphili, to King Louis XIV. The picture was brought to Paris by Bernini but was badly damaged by water during the journey. The head of St. Joseph must have disappeared during restoration.
The scene depicted on the back cover is copied after Titian's The Holy Family with a Shepherd in a Landscape of about 1510, now in the National Gallery, London. The earlier provenance of the painting is unknown but it is recorded for the first time in the 1693 inventory of the Borghese Palace, Rome.
Although it is tempting to suggest that the bookbinding was commissioned either for Olimpia Aldobrandini Borghese Pamphili who owned the front cover painting from 1638, or for Prince Pamphili or for King Louis XIV himself, it is most probable that the present prayer book was indeed commissioned by a member of the Borghese family who may have owned both paintings at the same time, before 1665.

Early enamelled gold book covers are extremely rare and must in most cases have been princely commissions. Another enamelled bookbinding is in the Musée Condé, Chantilly, illustrated in Pierre-Francis Schneeberger, "Les peintres sur émail genevois au XVIIe et au XVIIIe siècle", Genava, July 1958, VI, fasc. 2-3, p. 94.