Author: De Bie (Jacques):
Title: Les Vrais Portraits des Rois de France. Tire de ce quit Novs Reste de leurs Monumens, Sceaux, Medailles, ou autres Effigies, conseruees dan les plus rares & plus curieux Cabinets du Royaume. Av Tres. Chrestien Roy de France et de Navarre Lovis XIII. Seconde Edition. Augmentee de nouveaux Portraits, & enrichie des Vies des Rois par le R. P. H. de Coste....
Description: A Paris, Chez Jean Camvsat..., 1636. Folio, 297 x 215 mms., pp. [xxiv], 395 [396 Avertissement dl'Auteur, 397 - 423 Index, 424 colophon], title-page printed in red and black, additional engraved title-page, 57 engraved plates, each taking up most of the recto of a leaf, 5 without image of king, contemporary lightly mottled calf, gilt spine (faded), black morocco, expertly rebacked with old spine laid down; some occasional damp-staining but a very good to fine copy, with the an armorial bookplate on the front paste-down end-paper, and deaccesioned from the Ashmolean Museum. The engraver Jacques de Bie (1581 - 1640) published a number of dictionaries, checklists, or anthologies of various of medals, coins, portraits etc. In an online paper entitled "Collection, conviction, and contemplation; or, Picturing coins in early modern books, ca. 1550-1700," Professor Brian W. Ogilvie comments, "De Bie wanted to do for the French monarchy what sixteenth century antiquarians had done for the Roman emperors: produce a series of metallic portraits and reverses that would illustrate the kings of France, from Charlemagne to the present, and their noble deeds. Faced with a distinct lack of such medals, especially for the Carolingians and early Capetians, De Bie made them up, covering up his inventions (not entirely successfully) by emphasizing the research he had conducted to find them. De Bie's text told one story, but his engravings sometimes told another: he was honest enough to include the real source of a picture (for instance, a tomb completed centuries after its occupant's inhumation) while portraying it in the form of a medal."

Keywords: biography portraits prose


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