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about his autograph manuscripts
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about the watermarks
My sketches of the watermarks in
the papers used by Marc-Antoine Charpentier
I am publishing my sketches of the watermarks
to be found in Marc-Antoine Charpentier's autograph manuscripts. Each watermark
is identified by a letter, a number, or a symbol. These are the identifications
that I used back in 1994 for my Vers une Chronologie .... and that are
described verbally in that booklet, pp. 57-59.
Some words of caution:
- the measurements are approximate,
because I could not allow my ruler to come within an inch of the surface of
these precious manuscripts with my ruler
- the sketches are still more
approximate, since tracing the watermarks was out of the question
- the raisins (bunches of
grapes) that I sketched are extremely schematic: that is, the size of the
individual grapes and the number of grapes in each row do not reproduce the
actual watermark — which was extremely common in the 17th century and which
varied from one forme in which "grape" paper was produced to the
next.
- the little superscript numbers above
a few watermarks show the variant of that particular mark and are not part
of the watermark itself
- a few sketches are incomplete
because they were cut from the photocopy of made of the originals, and the
originals are for the moment absent without leave. (I am thinking especially
of paper "E," where part of the little bunch of grapes than hangs from the
cartouche is missing; paper "6," where a cross of the Order of the Holy
Spirit hangs from Colbert's coat of arms; and paper "**", which is almost
illegible anyway.)
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