Plates of the fireworks...- Relation of the... - Lot 27 - Les ventes Damien Voglaire SRL

Lot 27
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Plates of the fireworks...- Relation of the... - Lot 27 - Les ventes Damien Voglaire SRL
Plates of the fireworks...- Relation of the Solemn inauguration of His Sacred Imperial and Catholic Majesty, Charles VI. Emperor of the Romans... Celebrated in Ghent Capital City of the Province, the XVIII. October 1717. Gang, Augustin Graet, 1719, large folio (44 x 27 cm), frontispiece and 6 large plates by Helybrouck, Berterham and Harrewyn after van Volxsem, J. Colin and Eykens, 32 p., including the title. Bound in later half vellum with corners (boards rubbed, edges worn). The plates are loose (from the original) (qqs folds carefully reinforced formerly). Graet's text provides a meticulous account of the festivities, day by day, including the departure of the cavalcade from Brussels on 16 October and its arrival at the Abbey of Mount-Blandin in Ghent, the musical programme of the mass in St. Bavo, and above all the opulent pomp of the inauguration on the afternoon of the 18th at the Friday Market (Vrijdagmarkt, Ghent's largest public square), for which an enormous stage had been specially designed by the architect Jacob Colin. The opening engraving, almost one metre wide, is signed by Colin, C. Eykens and the engraver J.B. Berterham, who also made the engraving of the interior of the cathedral. A third plate shows a rather macabre triumphal arch, celebrating the expansion of the Austrian Empire with pikes bearing the severed heads of Turkish generals. The spacious Vrijdagmarkt, with its central column and statue of Charles V, is also the backdrop for two of the three fireworks plates. Curiously, each of these prints depicts the incendiary towers in two stages: not only during the detonation of their pyrotechnic fountains, but also before their ignition, when their thousands of canisters still hang untouched. The most striking of these plates, by Jacob Harrewijn, depicts the towers at night, overlooking the Gothic façade of the Town Hall. Although Charles VI became Count of Flanders in 1713, the prolonged transfer of the province from the Spanish Habsburgs to the Austrian Habsburgs delayed the festivities until 1717, when no expense was spared to celebrate the inauguration. Graet's festive book even proclaims Charles as the "King of the Espanges," although this title had already been won in the War of the Spanish Succession by Philip (Berlin 2959; Watanabe 2730; Landwehr Ceremonies 198; Lotz, p. 104; Salatino, Incendiary Art, pp. 33-36).
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