BROADSIDE FUNERAL INVITATION

[Mimerel, Marie-Therese]: [Incipit] Vous êtes priés d’assister aux Convoi & Vigiles de Damoiselle Marie-Therese Mimerel, Espouse d’Honorable Homme Antoine-Isidore de Bonne, Négociant & ancien Consul de cette Ville d’Amiens […]. [Amiens, 1779]. 

This unlocated invitation to the funeral of Marie-Therese Mimerel (1723-1779), evidently intended for public display, includes a large woodcut initial replete with memento mori imagery. The ‘V’ is ornamented with skulls, blood droplets (or perhaps tears), and two figures respectively holding a spade and a scythe. 

The funeral is set for 5PM on Sunday the 17th of January 1779 at the Church of Saint Martin in Amiens, with the burial following at the cemetery of Saint Denis. Readers are also invited to Mass the following day. Marie-Therese Mimerel married local merchant and city official Antoine-Isidore de Bonne, with whom she had 10 children before dying at the age of 55 (cf. Geneanet).

Details

Broadside, 42 x 53 cms, letterpress with large woodcut initial (10.5 x 11 cms). Condition: a well-preserved copy with wide margins (light browning and soiling, fold lines, some fraying and damage to edges, four inky fingerprints quite possibly from time of production). Verso blank except for some later pencil notes.  

Not in OCLC or CCFr. OCLC shows two similar prints connected with Amiens from 1791 and 1821 (respectively in the Library of Congress and BM Lyon).