KRAUS, Johanna Sybilla and Johann Ulrich KRAUS. Tapisseries du Roy. Frontispiece, 4 ff., text pages numbered 1-10, 23-26, 39-40, 53-55, 71-79, 93-97, 111-113, 127-129, engraved half-title of the Four Elements, engraved half-title of the Four Seasons, 8 double-page copperplates of the tapestries after S. Le Clerc, 32 copperplate emblems within Baroque borders. Folio, 325 x 210 mm, bound in contemporary German sprinkled calf, nineteenth-century paper spine label. Augsburg: Jacob Koppmayer, 1687.

In French and German, this is the First Bilingual Edition, and a marvel of German Baroque book-illustration. The work contains illustrations after Sébastian Le Clerc's copperplate engravings of Charles Le Brun's designs for great tapestry series of the "Four Elements" and the "Four Seasons" commissioned by Louis XIV. These tapestries "constitute the first set to be wholly designed and executed at the newly established Manufacture Royale de Tapisserie des Gobelins" (Knothe, Florian. Tapestry in the Baroque. Threads of Splendor. Metropolitan Musuem of Art, 2007, p. 356).

Kraus's Tapisseries du Roy reproduces the eight tapestries of Charles Le Brun, originally converted to copperplate by Le Clerc, and then adds the informative thirty-two "Devises," or emblems, appear in the borders of the original tapestries and were based on miniature paintings by Jacques Bailly (1629-1679). They are here set within elaborate Baroque borders. The German versions of the Le Clerc plates were newly engraved by Kraus and his wife Johanna Sybilla Kraus, daughter of Melchior Küsell.

French versions of the Le Clerc plates were published in 1665, 1667 and 1670 by André Félibien and were frequently presented as royal gifts. Félibien's publication was the first source to offer in-depth descriptions of the symbolism and political allegories embedded in the tapestries' iconology. Kraus and his wife copied Félibien's plates in reverse, which means they actually project the true orientation of the original tapestries, and they created a new work by the addition of new verse transcriptions of Charles Perrault's madrigals accompanying the devices or emblems.

Johann Ulrich Kraus, or Krauss (1655-1719), was a native of Augsburg who remained faithful to the city despite many offers from other places. He learned the art of engraving from his father, a cabinetmaker. He produced several illustrated books remarkable for the inventiveness of their ornamentation and their skill in execution. Marginal tear to one plate, not affecting image. Very fine impressions of the engravings.

PROVENANCE: Le Comte Frobenius de Furstemberg, so inscribed in ink on inside front cover.

Landwehr, Romanic 287. Praz, p. 334. Berlin Katalog 1672. Faber du Faur 1846 (the 1690 edition only).