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Print, Design for Cartouche Evoking Death
This is a Print. It was designed by Jacques de Lajoüe and engraved by Gabriel Huquier. It is dated 1740 and we acquired it in 1920. Its medium is engraving on white laid paper. It is a part of the Drawings, Prints, and Graphic Design department.
This cartouche design by the French academician, painter, and ornament designer Jacques de Lajoüe was etched by printmaker and publisher, Gabriel Huquier, for his Second book of Cartouches (ca. 1734). The composition combines a symmetrical pentagonal cartouche with an elaborate combination of emblems and motifs. At the apex of the pentagon is a skull wearing the Triregnum, the three-crown papal tiara topped here, unusually, with a patriarchal cross. Accompanying the crowned skull are laurel leaves, a scythe, smoking torches, a sword, a spear, and a bow. Flanking the sides of the cartouche is grotesquely amplified shell-like scrolls and fossilized foliage. At the lower edge are loose antique coins, a crown, reeds and a spade and a pick. Together, they convey the ambience of an archeological site or a graveyard. Such fantastical designs were not intended to be realized but were a popular format upon which artists explored the limits of the rococo style. Lajoüe was a prolific designer whose prints were in great demand by connoisseurs. This design is a paradigm of the rococo style where unconventional emblems culled from zoology, botany, and even papal emblems were collaged together in service of ornament.
This object was featured in our Object of the Week series in a post titled A Papal Graveyard.
It is credited Purchased for the Museum by the Advisory Council.
- Drawing, Sepulcher in Egyptian Style with Death Carrying a Lamp
- pen and black ink, brush and gray, blue-gray wash, graphite on off-white paper.
- Museum purchase through gift of various donors and from Eleanor G. Hewitt Fund.
- 1938-88-3952
Its dimensions are
Platemark: 22 x 18.8 cm (8 11/16 x 7 3/8 in.) Sheet: 33.3 x 24.2 cm (13 1/8 x 9 1/2 in.)
It is inscribed
On plate, upper left: B; upper right: 4; lower left: De la Joüe in.; lower center: avec privilege du Roi.; lower right: Huquier Sculp.
Cite this object as
Print, Design for Cartouche Evoking Death; Designed by Jacques de Lajoüe (French, 1687–1761); Engraved by Gabriel Huquier (French, 1695–1772); France; engraving on white laid paper; Platemark: 22 x 18.8 cm (8 11/16 x 7 3/8 in.) Sheet: 33.3 x 24.2 cm (13 1/8 x 9 1/2 in.); Purchased for the Museum by the Advisory Council; 1921-6-326-7
