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Home>Exhibitions>Past>2019>In the Library: Pageantry and Pyrotechnics in the European Fete Book

# In the Library: Pageantry and Pyrotechnics in the European Fete Book

June 24 – September 6, 2019East Building, Study Center Library

**This exhibition is no longer on view at the National Gallery.**

**This exhibition is open from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday. It is not open on weekends.**

The exact origins of fireworks remain unknown. They probably originated in Asia sometime around the ninth century and are most often attributed to China, although pyrotechnics were known to have been used in ancient India as well. At some point in the Middle Ages the technology found its way to Europe, but sources vary on when they arrived and who brought them. The Italians were the first to manufacture fireworks in Europe, and they were well established features of religious festivals and public entertainment by the fourteenth century. So-called fire masters were tasked with creating ever more complex displays, and pyrotechnic schools were established throughout Europe during the Renaissance. Written descriptions of fireworks displays at festivals and events are found in sources dating into the sixteenth century. But it was in the seventeenth century that artists began attempting to capture these ephemeral events visually. This coincides with both the rise of the fete book and of etching and engraving as the primary media for fine book illustration.

A fete book, or festival book, is a volume devoted to recording the apparatus, participants, and events planned around things such as religious festivals, state visits, aristocratic marriages, military victories, coronations, and royal birthdays. These publications are meant to celebrate and promote the power of those taking part in or sponsoring the event in question. They are usually illustrated with etchings and engravings, which offered seventeenth-century artists more flexibility than the woodcut for rendering these fantastic spectacles.

This exhibition presents technical manuals and festival books drawn from the Special Collections of the National Gallery of Art Library, which describe and depict an array of techniques and strategies. Representing many different times and places, they show how the technology and artistry of fireworks displays and the methods for recording them evolved in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe, as rulers projected their power and prestige through pyrotechnic delights.

In the Library: Pageantry and Pyrotechnics in the European Fete Book
Pierre Faber, plate from *Reception de tres-chrestien, tres-iuste, et tres-victorieux monarque Louys XIII. roy de France & de Navarre ...*, Lyon: Jaques Roussin, 1623, National Gallery of Art Library, David K. E. Bruce Fund, DC123.3 .S65 1623

In the Library: Pageantry and Pyrotechnics in the European Fete Book
A. Mathieu after Jean Godran, plate from *Les armes triomphantes de Son Altesse, monseignevr, le dvc d'Espernon*, Dijon: Philibert Chanvance, 1656, National Gallery of Art Library, David K. E. Bruce Fund, DC801.D61 B47 1656

In the Library: Pageantry and Pyrotechnics in the European Fete Book
Artist unknown, plate from *Description des feux d'artifices faits a l'honnevr du Roy a Lille*, Lille: Jean Chrisostome Malte, 1680, National Gallery of Art Library, David K. E. Bruce Fund, DC801.L688 D47 1680

In the Library: Pageantry and Pyrotechnics in the European Fete Book
Vincenzo Coronelli, plate from César d’Estrée, *Roma festeggiante nel Monte Pincio / Roma triomphante sur le Mont Pincius*, Venice: Vincenzo Coronelli, c. 1687, National Gallery of Art Library, Gift of the Circle of the National Gallery of Art, DC126 .R66 1687

In the Library: Pageantry and Pyrotechnics in the European Fete Book
Romeyn de Hooghe, plate from Govard Bidloo, *Komste van Zyne Majesteit Willem III. Koning van Groot Britanje, enz. in Holland*, The Hague: A. Leers, 1691, National Gallery of Art Library, David K. E. Bruce Fund, DJ186 .B53

In the Library: Pageantry and Pyrotechnics in the European Fete Book
Romeyn de Hooghe, plate 6 from *Divo et invictissimo Leopoldo I. P.F.A. fidei in Hungaria*..., c. 1686, engraving, National Gallery of Art Library, Nell and Robert Weidenhammer Fund, N44.H779 A3 1686

In the Library: Pageantry and Pyrotechnics in the European Fete Book
Melchior Küsel, plate from *Von Himmeln entzindete vnd durch allgemainen Zuruff der Erde sich himmelwerts erschwingende Frolokhungs Flammen* ..., Vienna: publisher unknown, 1666, National Gallery of Art Library, David K. E. Bruce Fund, DB67.3 .V66 1666

In the Library: Pageantry and Pyrotechnics in the European Fete Book
Jacobus Harrewijn, plate from *Relation de l'inauguration solemnelle de Sa Sacrée Majesté imperiale et catholique, Charles VI., Empereur des Romains, toujours auguste*, Ghent: Augustin Graet, 1719, National Gallery of Art Library, David K. E. Bruce Fund, DB69.3 .R4 1719

In the Library: Pageantry and Pyrotechnics in the European Fete Book
Artist unknown, plate from Giuseppe Antonio Alberti, *La pirotechnia, o sia, Trattato dei fuochi d'artificio*, Venice: Gio. Battista Recurti, 1749, National Gallery of Art Library, Mark J. Millard Architectural Collection, TP300 .A42

In the Library: Pageantry and Pyrotechnics in the European Fete Book
Giuseppe Scolari, plate from Germano Benoni, *La maestà coronata*, Padua: Giovanni Manfrè, 1714, National Gallery of Art Library, David K. E. Bruce Fund, DG975.V52 B47 1714

In the Library: Pageantry and Pyrotechnics in the European Fete Book
Andreas Nunzer after Balthasar Neumann, plate from *Beschreibung der brennenden Feuer-Bühn, welche zu höchten Ehren der durchlauchtigsten Fürstin und Frau, Frau Elisabeth, Gebohrnen Erb-Printzessin zu Hungarn und Böheimb ...*, Würzburg: Heinrich Engmann, 1725, National Gallery of Art Library, David K. E. Bruce Fund, DD901.W93 E28 1725

**Organization:** Organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington

**Passes:** Admission is always free and passes are not required

**Brochure:**In the Library: Pageantry and Pyrotechnics in the European Fete Book by Yuri Long. Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 2019. 

                          - Hooghe, Romeyn de
                          - Dutch , 1645 - 1708
                          - Küsel, Melchior
                          - German , 1626 - 1683
                          - Scolari, Giuseppe
                          - Italian , 1564 - 1625

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