Two books on the Joyous Entries of the Counts of Flanders in Ghent, Southern Netherlands, 18th C.

Description:

(1) Relation de l’inauguration solemnelle de sa sacrée majesté [...] Charles VI. [...] comme comte de Flandres, célébrée à Gand [...], le XVIII. Octobre 1717, Ghent, Augustin Graet, 1719.

Folio: front. - 32 pp., 7 pl. (incl. front.). Contemp. calft, gilt arms on covers, gilt spine with 7 raised bands.

Memorial fête book illustrating the inauguration in Ghent of Charles VI as Count of Flanders in 1717. The plates nicely illustrate the festivities, culminating in the firworks in the surroundings of the Ghent town hall.

(2) Relation de l’inauguration solemnelle de sa sacrée majesté Marie Thérèse [...] comme comtesse de Flandres, célébrée à Gand, [...], le XXVII. Avril 1744, Ghent, Widow P. de Goesin, 1744.

Folio: front. - 43 pp.; 2 pl. (incl. front.). Contemp. calf, gilt arms on covers, gilt spine with 6 raised bands.

Report of the inauguration of Maria Theresia as countess of Flanders in Ghent. Illustrated with an engraved frontispice depicting Maria Theresia by the Ghent artist Frans Pilsen after the painting of Philips Charles Marissal, the later founder of the Ghent art academy and with an impressive folding plate by the same Pilsen showing a general view of the ceremony conducted on an elaborate stage built at the Vrijdagmarkt by the Ghent architect David 't Kindt.

Provenance:
Ex-libris "Boekenrik Vangassen".

Literature:

Klaas Van Gelder & Bert Van Cauter, "Een publieke ceremonie in een turbulent tijdvak: de inauguratie van Maria Theresia als gravin van Vlaanderen (1744)", in: HMGOG, LXVII, 2013, pp. 101-130 (link).