Accession number
PML 145850.85
Published
[Paris] : N. Berey ex. avec privilege du Roy, [1653?]
Credit line
Bequest of Gordon N. Ray, 1987.
Notes
Presumed to be the same print as that recorded in an entry for 1653 in vol. 4 of the Bibliothèque historique de la France, Table d'un Recueil d'Estampes concernant l'Histoire de France, described as a "Description des meurtres & carnages faits en Gâtinois, par un Monstre, qui fut tué le 11 Avril, & apporté à 5a Majesté par les Habitans de Moigny : N. Berey."
Mounted as item 85 in an album of collected prints, broadsides, drawings, and miscellaneous single sheet items, assembled by former owner Joseph Ames and entitled "Emblematical and satirical prints on persons and professions" (PML 145850).
Library's copy is trimmed to image with presumed loss of caption text.
Mounted as item 85 in an album of collected prints, broadsides, drawings, and miscellaneous single sheet items, assembled by former owner Joseph Ames and entitled "Emblematical and satirical prints on persons and professions" (PML 145850).
Library's copy is trimmed to image with presumed loss of caption text.
Description
1 print : engraving ; 252 x 344 mm
Inscriptions/Markings
Inscribed in ink within image: A horrible monster abt. Pontneiuf [i.e. a bout Pont-Neuf] 1653; the second half of the inscription evidently referring to the address of the print's publisher, Nicolas Berey, who was located in Paris "a bout du Pont-Neuf" during this time period.
Provenance
From the library of Gordon N. Ray.
Summary
Print showing the "Beast of Gâtinais", a wolf or wolfish animal responsible for a series of attacks on the residents of Gâtinais in the yeats 1652-1657, as a monstrous wolf-like creature with prominent breasts, facing left, standing over the mutilated body of a woman and surrounded by bones and severed body parts; in the background at right, a second beast is depicted crouching beside a human hand.
Classification
Catalog link
Department