Announcing a burial in Arras: Very large, unrecorded broadside.
[Ephemera] / [Burial]. Messieurs et Dames. Vous êtes priés d’assister aux Vigiles, Convoi, Service & Enterrement de M.e Louis-Joseph-Regis Ansart, Avocat au Conseil d’Artois, & ancient Echevin de la Ville & Cité d’Arras, décédé le 12 Mars 1784. Les Vigiles seront chantées aujourd’hui Samedi 13, à cinques heures, dans l’Eglise de St. Géry, sa Paroisse; le Service solemnel y sera célébré demain Dimanche 14, à onze heures, suivi de son Inhumation au Cimitiere de St. Nicase. De Profundis. Requiescat in Pace. A Arras, de l’Imprimerie de Guy Delasablonniere, [12/13 March 1784], Full sheet [57.5 x 46.1 cm], [1] f. letterpress broadside, with woodcut figurative initial and woodcut vignettes. Folds, toning at folds and edges, mend to loss at left edge.
Unrecorded, very large (full-sheet) broadside announcing the funeral services and burial of the attorney Louis-Joseph-Regis Ansart (b. 1721) in Arras, on 12 & 13 March 1784.
The sheet is decorated with a large woodcut initial inhabited by a frightful skeleton who forms the letter ‘V’ with two long bones. Heading the sheet are a woodcut of a skull and two woodcuts of flaming crossbones pierced by an arrow.
The piece is unusual for its size, the highly ephemeral nature of its use, and the fact that it was meant to be posted on a wall: These are three conditions that make its survival quite remarkable. Note that the text is explicit about the short timeline of the broadside’s use: Ansart died on the 12th, the vigil will be sung “today, Saturday the 13th,” and the service and burial will take place “tomorrow, Sunday the 14th.”
The full text might be translated: “Ladies and Gentlemen. You are requested to attend the Vigil, Procession, Service & Burial of Mr. Louis-Joseph-Regis Ansart, Advocate to the Council of Artois, and former Alderman of the Town and City of Arras, who died on March 12, 1784. The Vigil will be sung today, Saturday the 13th, at five o’clock, in the Church of St. Géry, his Parish; the solemn Service will be celebrated there tomorrow, Sunday the 14th, at eleven o’clock, followed by his Burial in the Cemetery of St. Nicase. From the Depths. Rest in Peace.”
OCLC and KVK locate no examples of this item.