This dissertation provides the first comprehensive study of Les Costumes Grotesques, a group of one-hundred black and white single-figure etchings of elegantly-posed characters wearing or composed of items related to a specific occupation, profession, or trade. The Costumes Grotesques was initiated by Parisian printmaker Nicolas I de Larmessin in 1688 and expanded in the years after Nicolas I’s death by his wife, brother, and associate. From the first to the last, these prints are itemized illustrations of seemingly every imaginable consumer object that was crafted, sold, and utilized for the purposes of enhancing early-modern life. In dressing these characters in work-related goods, the creators of the Costumes prints connected their figures—quite literally—to the processes, tools, and products of manufacture. In some, characters are dressed in twelve signs of the zodiac, in masks, in explosives, and in plans of military fortifications, thus expanding the ensemble’s subject matter to include many other types of professions aside from artisanal expertise. In dressing these characters in occupation-related items, the creators of the Costumes prints connected their figures—quite literally—to the processes, tools, and products of manual and intellectual labor. The existing literature on the Costumes Grotesques has clarified issues of attribution, established the individual prints that comprise the ensemble, and has identified possible influences on its conceit. Yet a study of the place the Costumes ensemble occupies, in its broader historical context and the specific visual culture in which it was created, has yet to be explored. Similarly, issues concerning the extent of its publication, circulation, and reproduction by other printmakers require further scrutiny. In this dissertation I argue that the Costumes Grotesques delighted audiences with its detailed, encyclopedic, and imaginative renderings of occupational tools and products, while also entertaining viewers with subtle (and, often, not so subtle) critiques of the monarchy and the pretensions of aristocratic culture. Throughout the ensemble are references to the specific period of Louis XIV’s reign in which they were created: an era marked by the monarch’s war-mongering, which threatened the nation’s economic health, and by the gradual dimming of the splendor of Versailles, which was no longer the site of festivities on the scale they had been at the start of the monarch’s reign. At the same time, I suggest, the Costumes celebrated numerous important achievements, accomplishments, and contributions of the French monarchy. In the chapters of my dissertation, I provide the first substantial definition of the Costumes Grotesques as a monument. I also analyze the production and circulation history of the ensemble, and examine the compositions of all known surviving original and pirated editions of the Costumes that have been preserved in US and European print repositories. By comparing the composition of editions of variants to those comprising the distinct publication phases identified in previous scholarship, I reveal the complexity of the ensemble’s circulation, and determine the place that variants, which were produced soon after the ensemble’s initiation, occupied in its production history. Other chapters focus on the question of sources for the Costumes Grotesques. A number of themes emerge and overlap in these three chapters, such as the increasing permeability of the boundary that had previously separated the court from the public sphere, and the complex public perception of Louis XIV’s reign at the end of the century. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Art History in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester 2017. / April 19, 2017. / 17th century, France, Larmessin, Louis XIV, printmaking, trades / Includes bibliographical references. / Robert Neuman, Professor Directing Dissertation; Reinier Leushuis, University Representative; Jack Freiberg, Committee Member; Stephanie Leitch, Committee Member.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_552305 |
| Contributors | Buck, Sarah E. (authoraut), Neuman, Robert (Robert Michael) (professor directing dissertation), Leushuis, Reinier, 1969- (university representative), Freiberg, Jack (committee member), Leitch, Stephanie (committee member), Florida State University (degree granting institution), College of Fine Arts (degree granting college), Department of Art History (degree granting departmentdgg) |
| Publisher | Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, text, doctoral thesis |
| Format | 1 online resource (338 pages), computer, application/pdf |
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