This magnificent print of the late 17th century represents a detailed description of a royal vessel (Navir Royal) with all its accessories and adornments. It is also accompanied at the bottom with a little cute poem extolling its virtues and wonders. Here it is in original French with an English translation (in which the original rhyme is not preserved).
O superbe Vaisseau dont la poupe dorée
Peut éblouir nos yeux de son moindre ornement
Ou vous êtes l’effet de quelque enchantement
Ou vous servez encore de palais à Nerée
Est-ce un château mouvant, est-ce une citadelle
Quelle étrange structure et pompeux bâtiment
Vit-on jamais machine et plus riche et plus belle
Surmonter les fureurs de l’humide élément?
Ô superb Vessel, the golden stern of which
Doth bedazzle our eyes with its least ornament!
Thou art the consequence of some enchantment
Or thou servest yet as palace to Nereus.
Is’t moving castle, is’t citadel?
What strange structure, what grand construction.
Hath ever been seen a machine more richly-wrought and more beautiful
overcome the furies of the watery element?
As you can see, the print is perfectly monochrome but it seeks to make up for the lack of colours by telling us in plain French the colours and materials of which the various (textile) parts are made. Thus, we learn that the standard at the front of the vessel is made of blue satin with golden lily flowers (fleurs-de-lys, the symbol of French monarchy) whereas the one overlooking the stern is made of green satin also with golden lily flowers. The grand standard of France at the top of the grand mast is made of white satin with golden and silver embroidery. The long standard wriggling in the wind like a flying snake is made of blue and white satin. We even learn that the ensign at the stern, which is not deployed and therefore invisible, is made of red satin.
Do we need to know all those colours? Well, unless you are a researcher of royal heraldry of the 17th and 18th centuries, you probably do not care for them that much, but it sounds to me as an apology for not having added actual colours to the print. As far as I am concerned, no apology is needed. I am quite happy they used a narrative description in lieu of actual colours, allowing us to admire the print in its original monochrome splendour.
While this is a rather unique piece in my collection, I do have another grand vessel depicted on a 18th century print. Just like the royal vessel above, this one called Bucentoro is designed to display the naval glory of a major European power, the Venetian Republic (aka the Serenissima), at the climax of its power. Before being destroyed after the fall of the Republic at the end of the 18th century, it had been used for centuries for the annual solemn ceremony of marriage with the sea on the Ascension day which involved the Doge (Duke of Venice) throwing a ring into the sea.
