So, here is that earlier post from the MSW build-log:
__
Now that I have completed my light re-design of the Berain/Vary quarter galleries, I also had time to reflect upon some of the questions and criticisms that scholars levy against the likelihood that they are the rightful companion to the known Berain stern drawing, for this time that I have targeted in 1689.
In correspondence I have held with these individuals, they cite anomalies in the scale and execution of this drawing.
The lower false stern balcony, for example, is grossly exaggerated. They also mention that the relative proportion of the windows at each of the three levels does not neatly correspond with the relative proportions shown on the stern drawing. If that weren’t enough, the diamond-hatch, leaded cames of the lower gallery windows is of the antiquated (First Marine) style, and it does not match the cross-hatched mullions on the stern drawing. I agree that these anomalies are hard to jibe with what is clearly an exquisitely rendered stern drawing, where not one line or detail seems out of proportion or place.
All of these individuals point toward the missing elephantine head-dress of the figure of Africa; has Berain suddenly forgotten that what he shows from the stern perspective must also appear in the quarter view, they wonder? I wonder that too.
Not lastly, but also notably, these individuals point to the mermaid figures as being wholly inconsistent with the stern allegory, and more likely a relic of the earlier First Marine style of ornamentation. Again, I find it hard to argue against these observations.
In fact, I will probably never be able to definitively say that this QG rendering is the hand of Berain, because as these men also point out, it is not archived as a set with the stern drawing. Nevertheless, these considerations won’t stop me from attempting to bolster my central argument - that these stern and quarter drawings do correspond.
And so, ever remaining consistent with my approach to research, I am always studying SR’s better documented contemporaries and near contemporaries in search of structural and ornamental patterns of consistency.
This book,
Floating Baroque (thanks again to Heinrich) has been an invaluable resource because it provides me with archival quality reproductions of ornamental sets that are known to correspond with each other, from a specific time, and originating at the hand of Jean Berain.
For the first time, I am able to closely examine exquisite renderings of the sets for Le Brillant, for example:
The coronation of the QG upper finishing, and the ovoid window, at the quarter deck level are closely consistent with that of the SR drawing. The same can be said for the filigree banding, along the upper balcony level, and the paneling beneath the lower gallery level of windows. These are all familiar elements of Jean Berain's oeuvre, arranged in his characteristic style.
While it is known that this set corresponds with each other, it can quickly be observed, however, that there are also strange anomalies between the stern and quarter views.
As in the SR stern drawing, at the quarter deck level, there is a shadow line that suggests an overhanging stern balcony for Le Brillant. The quarter view confirms this. There is, however, nothing in the stern view of Le Brillant to suggest that the stern counter also projects as an open, walkable balcony, and yet, that is precisely what the quarter view shows. In fact, this lower balcony seems to project even a small bit further than the upper balcony.
The trouble, here (so far as my research seems to indicate), is that by this time in 1690, the French had long abandoned walkable stern balconies at the counter level. They remained, only, as vestigial shelfs for corbels supporting open galleries above.
During his illustrious career as a model maker at La Musee, Tanneron also made a model of Le Brillant. His resolution of these incongruities is, I think, the correct one:
(Pic from Wolfram Zu Mondfeld)
Curiously, though, while his execution of the ornament is, for the most part, extremely close to what was drawn, for some reason he chose not to include the royal drapery swag that flanks the central medallion of Louis, on the tafferal. He also chose to replace the lambrequin tasseling above the medallion, as it was drawn by Berain, with a foliate garland. Certainly, the relative complexity of execution could not have been a deciding factor for a talent like Tanneron. He must have settled on this interpretation for other reasons.
Likewise, I have found the stern and quarter views of L’Agreable to be equally fascinating. Following are studies drawn by Berain for the ship’s major refit in 1696/97:
They are signed and dated by Desclouseaux, the intendant at Brest at the time, where the work was performed. As an interesting side note, L’Agreable was originally a Toulon built ship from 1670, and she was one of the longest-lived ships of the French navy, serving faithfully until she was condemned in 1715.
It is also interesting to note that Berain drew the lower transom in the architectural manner of ships prior to the Reglement of 1672 - whereby, the wing transom that defines the widest span is located above the chase ports. This is also, notably, the case for Berain’s stern drawing of SR.
For those interested in period coloring, I also found a colored print of the stern, which gives an idea what that all may have looked like:
Anyway, what first drew me in with L’Agreable was the split-tailed triton above her quarter deck level, QG window. This figure, it seemed to me, was closely reminiscent of the First Marine stylings of Pierre Puget. Here, on Puget’s portrait of the Monarque (yes, I can hear the Royal Louis nay-sayers) are the very same sort of figures supporting the main deck quarter gallery walk:
Likewise, these figures are not un-related to the antiquated-seeming mermaid figures on the QG of Soleil Royal. Yet, here this figure appears on L’Agreable, in 1697, by the hand of Jean Berain.
So, what shall we make of that? Personally, as I have presented earlier, Jean Berain’s presentation of Soleil Royal’s stern isn’t a wholly original composition, but more an updating of the earlier execution of Puget, as first conceived by LeBrun. If it is true that some of the original ornament survived and was re-incorporated into the re-build, in 1689, why is it so far-fetched that these Puget-like mermaid figures might not also be re-imagined into Berain’s tableau?
Perhaps, in her first incarnation, split-tailed mermaid figures supported the main deck, open-walk of Soleil’s quarter galleries - as opposed to the tritons you see on the Monarque. Perhaps Berain has simply chosen to re-style them as low-reliefs that flank the upper finishing.
While none of this is certain, or even provable without a detailed and reliably attributed contemporary portrait of Soleil Royal, circa 1680, I think I have at least succeeded, with earlier posts, in demonstrating that ornamental motifs were carried over from one iteration of a ship, by a given name, to the next.
Returning to the drawings of L’Agreable, it is also of interest to me that the lower gallery windows are drawn with the antiquated diamond-hatch caming, in opposition to the cross-hatch mullions of the stern drawing - just as is illustrated in SR’s stern and quarter views. Perhaps, this diamond hatching isn’t so antiquated, after all - even in 1697.
Tanneron didn’t seem to think so. In fact, in his model of L’Agreable, he chose to represent the lower stern windows as diamond-hatched, instead of the cross-hatch that Berain drew. Why? It’s anyone’s guess:
What I really find fascinating about this Tanneron model, though, is the number of windows represented. Tanneron modeled five windows within the extension of the quarter galleries, from the ship’s sides. However, Berain’s drawing shows 7 window frames within the QG extensions!
Now, it is quite possible that the outer two frames are merely representational, and not actually glazed. They are of a more narrow silhouette. Whatever the case may be, Tanneron decided not to include them.
It could be that, with reference to whatever other sources were available to him, Tanneron decided that these two vestigial windows cluttered the presentation of the stern, since they did not also carry up to the quarter deck bank of stern windows. That would essentially amount to the same kind of artistic editing I performed with my drawing of SR’s QG, when I reduced the lower gallery tier from five to three gallery windows. I felt that the fifth, forward-most window was representational, at best.
All of these considerations, though, bring us full-circle to one of the fundamental questions about Tanneron’s model of Soleil Royal: just why did he choose to model a five-window stern, as opposed to the six-window stern that Berain drew? In truth, I can not say, but perhaps Tanneron demonstrated an artistic preference, there, for a lesser profusion of windows. Along that line of reasoning, he certainly simplified the tasseled lambrequin carving that Berain drew for the lower, false gallery.
Whatever the truths may be, I think it is clear that there is precedent for divergence in the model makers’ art when interpreting these primary source drawings - even when there is a high degree of congruence between stern and quarter views.
Until better sources emerge (and I’m always looking), I’m going to stick with this as my operating theory of the epoch.
And just because they are interesting, here are a few drawings for the ornamentation of a Versailles fountain barge (I believe that’s what it represents) that Berain collaborated with Philippe Caffieri to create in 1688:
It is, in my view, a mixture of old and new styles, with a bulwark frieze that echoes that of Soleil Royal.
Edited September 10, 2019 by Hubac's Historian
) to master this one, great French ship.
