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[FLEMISH FLOWER MANUSCRIPT]
A bound collection of vellum sheets illuminated with original bodycolour paintings on 28 panels, the vellum sheets originally forming two continuous manuscript rolls, both relating to the De La Broye family, attested to by J. Simon, the chief clerk of the Chamber of Accounts of the city of Lille
Lille, Spanish Netherlands: 1630. Folio (17 1/2 x 12 inches approx). Mounted on guards throughout. Roll 1 (signed twice by J.Simon): 15 vellum sheets, the majority folded, with a total of 27 columns of text (with 9 original integral vignette bodycolour paintings), and 22 rectangular panels flanked on either side by a thick gold rule, each panel approx. 4 1/2 inches wide and containing an original bodycolour painting of flowers with a single figure of a man (in 19 panels) or a bird (in 3 panels) - the men variously dressed in costume of the period and involved in various pursuits: hunting, cooking, fencing, playing a drum, etc. Roll 2 (signed once by J. Simon): 4 vellum sheets, 3 folded, with a total of 6 columns of text and 1 wide horizontal area also bearing text (with 5 integral vignette bodycolour paintings), and 6 rectangular panels (three thick panels approx. 5 3/4 inches wide; three thinner panels approx 3 3/4 inches wide) flanked on either side by a thick gold rule and each containing an original bodycolour painting of flowers with a single bird (in 4 panels); a bird and a snail (1 panel) or a bird, a butterfly and flowers (1 panel). 18th-century vellum over pasteboard, early manuscript title to spine. Provenance: Louis-François Quarré-Reybourbon (Lille, 'Collection Quarré-Reybourbon' 19th-century bookplate); Paul Anatole Auguste Marie Denis du Péage (Lille, 1874-1952, armorial bookplate).
An important early series of original botanical paintings from the European tradition of celebrating wealth and status through a show of rare and expensive varieties of tulips and others exotic cultivars. Originally produced for the De La Broye family, this series was more recently in the collections of two the foremost historians of Lille and its great families.
Despite their obvious historical importance, the chief interest of these manuscripts to the modern eye is undoubtedly the exceptional illuminated panels which separate each column of text. The overall theme is floral: not wild flowers but the extremely expensive cultivated flowers that were coming to prominence at the beginning of the seventeenth century - made popular in courtly circles from about 1600 by works such as Pierre Vallet's Le Jardin du Roy, Basilius Besler's record of the Prince Bishop's garden at Eichstätt, and the Hortus Floridus of Crispijn van de Passe. This concentration on exotic blooms in the present manuscripts was a deliberate attempt to link the De La Broye family with the opulence that these flowers implied. The most obvious of these luxury plants was the tulip, and given the time and the place where these drawings were done it is no surprise to find various cultivars of the tulip predominating - it is interesting to note that all the varieties shown are of the most expensive 'bybloemen' group. The courtly interest of the 1600s, had by the 1620s become more widespread, and from 1634 to 1637 tulips like the multi-coloured varieties pictured here, were the flowers which fuelled the 'tulipomania' craze in the Netherlands. At its height sums equal to the cost of a good-sized house on the waterfront in Amsterdam were gambled on single bulbs. These manuscripts form one of the earliest known collections of images of a significant number of different varieties of tulips: at least twenty are pictured, and although they are not identified they form a rare and valuable record of the cultivars of the period. In addition to tulips, the images also include pinks, narcissi, irises, martagon lilies, roses and asters.
The majority of images are further enlivened by the addition of what are possibly various members of the De La Broye family, all men, all dressed in costume of the period, and all undertaking worthy pursuits. These include a preponderance of military actions: firing a gun, on horseback with sword drawn, on foot with sword drawn, etc., but they are also shown hunting and cooking. All of these figures are placed at the foot of each panel and are worked to a completely different scale to the flowers. The panels without figures have birds or other animals added that are more in scale with the flowers around them. There is a further group of illustrations that are used to decorate the columns of text: a number of these appear to have been used to mask out areas of the text that were not required (the original text can be made out under the paintings), whilst others are used to great decorative effect. The images used in this group include hunting, fishing, animals against a naturalistic background and two men on horseback.
The two documents, produced for the De La Broye family of Lille, can be dated to a golden period for the city of Lille when the city and a large area of what is now northern France was ruled over by Spain and formed part of what was then known as the Spanish Netherlands. An examination of what is now a bound collection of vellum sheets of various sizes reveals that they were originally glued together to form two document rolls with the illuminated panels acting as dividers between each vertical column of text. Internal evidence shows that both rolls were compiled for the De La Broye family as 'proofs of nobility'. To achieve the status of 'gentleman' it was necessary for an individual 'in trade' to prove that his family had in the past been of sufficient standing to warrant him being elevated once again. To provide this proof the De la Broye family apparently retained the services of J. Simon the 'premier greffier' or chief clerk of the Chamber of Accounts of Lille. He arranged for the archives to be searched for every reference to the good work or good standing of the family. These extracts (dating from the 13th to the 16th century) were then copied out by skilled scribes using various calligraphic and textual hands (apparently in imitation of the originals). Each extract was headed by a precis of what it was and a note about which original document it had been taken from, and each was attested to by J. Simon. An overall summary of the findings was added which was signed by J. Simon (roll 1: signed twice and dated once 26 October 1630; roll 2: signed once).
Literature:
Blunt & Stearn,The Art of Botanical Illustration (1994) pp.127-146
P. Denis du Péage,Recueil de généalogies Lilloises. (1906-1908)
A. Pavord,The Tulip (1999) pp.137-177
L. Tongiorgi Tomasi, An Oak Spring Flora (1997) pp.267-306
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#15247 $150,000.00 
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© 2002-2005 Donald A. Heald
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