BARBET (Jean) & BOSSE (Abraham). Livre d'architecture... Lot 1241

BARBET (Jean) & BOSSE (Abraham). Livre d'architecture d'Autels et de Cheminées, dédié à Monseigneur l'Eminentissime Cardinal Duc de Richelieu etc., De l'invention et dessin de J. Barbet, Gravé à l'eau forte par A. Bosse. Paris, chez l'auteur et Tavernier, 1633. Small folio (30 x 20.5 cm) contemporary vellum with laces. [18] engraved leaves: [1] f. dedication, [1] notice to the reader, [1] f. title in an architectural frame, 5 plates of altars and 10 (of 12) plates of fireplaces. First edition of this very rare suite, here incomplete with 2 fireplace engravings. Stains and soiling, lower corner of ff. restored. "The conditions under which this work, engraved by Bosse after drawings by Jean Barbet (circa 1605 - before 1654), was produced are well documented, since, as Emmanuel Coquery points out, "it is the only French collection of ornaments from this period for which we still have a market". This archive document, dated February 25, 1630, mentions that Barbet undertook to work for Tavernier for two years on drawings commissioned from him. [...] The work bears a long dedication by the author to Cardinal de Richelieu, as well as a particularly interesting warning to the reader, since Barbet specifies: "Having spent some time teaching what is beautiful in Paris, I have since practiced making this little Work, which I give you." It is therefore likely that examples of these fireplaces can be found in Parisian buildings. In 1630, when Barbet began working on this project, he was not yet the eminent architect he would become a few years later. First employed by Gaston d'Orléans in Blois in 1636, Jean Barbet, accompanied by his brother Denis, worked alongside Le Mercier on Richelieu's building sites. He was "contractor and architect to Monsieur, the King's only brother, and to the Richelieu buildings", before being appointed "architect to the King in Touraine". Several collections of fireplace designs were published in the 17th century, the most famous being those of Jean Marot (Livre des cheminées, Paris, 1661) and Jean Lepautre (Cheminées à la moderne, Paris, 1661), but the most important is that of Pierre Collot (Pièces d'architecture où sont compris plusieurs sortes de cheminées, Paris, 1633, drawings engraved by Antoine Lemercier), published in 1633, the same year as Barbet's work. E. Coquery points out that "the only piece of furniture that is really considered in engraving is the fireplace". Jean Barbet enlisted the collaboration of Abraham Bosse for this book, although it is possible that this choice was made by Tavernier, since he commissioned the work and Bosse was still engraving in his workshop at the time. The work contains five altar plates and twelve fireplace plates. Altars and fireplaces are, by their very nature, intended to decorate places of very different character, but they are brought together in the same book, without any incompatibility, as Barbet treats them with the same somewhat ostentatious opulence. These monumental mantels, with their luxurious, even exuberant decor, bear witness to the influence of the Fontainebleau school. The architectural and ornamental motifs are borrowed from the antique repertoire but interpreted in the Bellifont style. Cartouches, garlands of fruit and coiled leather frame a painting on the trumeau, the subject of which is borrowed from the Fable. Barbet, aided by Bosse's talent, thus offers us, in the course of the plates, the representation of an aulic and erudite art. [...]" BnF. "Jean Barbet (1605-before 1654), undoubtedly from Normandy, had a relatively fruitful career as a builder, working mainly on the Loire Valley sites in the shadow of Jacques Lemercier, Cardinal de Richelieu's architect. In 1633, he signed a contract with the Cardinal as "maître maçon à Paris" for the construction of thirty-two houses in Richelieu, where his presence is attested in 1634 as "entrepreneur des bastiments de ladite ville". In the same years, he also worked in Saumur, on the Notre-Dame des Ardilliers site, where, under the direction of Pierre Lemercier, he executed the plans of the latter's half-brother Jacques. He continued to work for the Lemercier clan from 1643 in Orléans, where he clashed with the architect over the construction of the Sainte-Croix spire. He also worked for Gaston d'Orléans in Blois from 1636. The Livre d'architecture project may have been linked to the construction of Notre-Dame des Ardilliers, which Richelieu had decided to renovate in 1632. Indeed, the sanctuary's high altar, completed in 1634, bears some resemblance to some of the models designed by Barbet, who may well have had the idea. However, according to Alexandre Gady, it is Jac