[ARITHMETIC]. [TRADE]. [MONIER (François)]. - Lot 72

[ARITHMETIC]. [TRADE]. [MONIER (François)]. Méthode d'arithmétique - Livre de Compte by François Monier In French, illustrated and ornate manuscript on paper France, Provence (Marseille ?), 18th century With numerous drawings in ink, sometimes enhanced with gouache and/or watercolor, and numerous painted ornaments and cartouches. 139 pages, cursive script, numerous calculations, drawings and ornaments, some watercolored or enhanced with gouache. Modern hard vellum binding, smooth spine, ink on spine, inscription in ink on upper cover: "Manuscrit provençal". Tears and stains to paper, some pages with portions of paper cut out (e.g. ff. 10 and 80), numerous restorations, some old (first and last leaf reinforced and lined with a printed leaf dated Marseille 1793). Dimensions: 345 x 230 mm. Interesting manuscript with naive drawings representative of a lively folk art. Some of the drawings are of superior quality, notably a gallery of small full-length portraits of 18th-century society figures. Also noteworthy is a fine series of fountain drawings, some of them colored. At the end of the volume: "Table générale de touttes les règles contenues dans ce presant Livre de compte de moy François Monier comme fait sy après". The frontispiece of the manuscript, surmounted by putti, features a large drawing in brown ink depicting Saint Ferréol as a military tribune, with the caption: "Sancte Ferreole, ora pro nobis" (fol. 1). The Church or sanctuary of Saint Ferréol is located on Marseille's Vieux-Port (Quai des Belges). Saint Ferréol de Vienne (or Forget) was a military tribune and martyr in Vienne, Dauphiné (feast day: September 18). Among the drawings are flowers and plants, a varied bestiary, insects and butterflies, horsemen, various characters in period costumes, including some linked to Carnival (Fête des fous, December masquerade), with, for example, two large colored drawings featuring polichinelles (ff. 38v, 46v), a naked man (wild man? (fol. 33v)), a monk facing a winged sphynge (ff. 110v-111) and, above all, a large number of drawings of fountains, some certainly identifiable, several certainly missing (ff. 40, 53v, 74, 76v, 88, 91v, 94v, 98v, 118v, 120v, 124v, 130v). At the end of the work, there is a large drawing in gouache, framed by flowers: it must be Saint Catherine (feather and wheel of her martyrdom), although it is not easy to identify (fol. 138). On fol. 139, a drawing of a large ship, probably indicating a merchant context for this account book.