A 17th century author and the illustration of his books - Jean Puget de LaSerre (1595-1665)

Jean Puget de La Serre (1595-1665), a prolific if minor author, wrote a min imum of seventy nine books, sixty of them illustrated. No other writer unde rstood the importance of pictures better than he did. He ignored no categor y of illustration: title pages, frontispieces, portraits, vignettes, histor ical themes and allegories, ornamental heads and initials were all used to keep up the reader's attention. Working regularly with the same painters an d engravers, he avoided becoming associated with any one printer in particu lar; a fact which, together with the stylistic unity of the pictures, is en ough to evidence that he was generally responsible for selecting the illust rations. Whether out of haste of carelessness, he occasionally resorted to combining or copying earlier pictures, more inclined as he was, probably fo r reasons of economy, to reuse existing copper plates than to do without il lustrations at all. The presentation copies executed for his patrons, and a dorned with hand-coloured engravings, calligraphic texts, and richly decora ted bindings, testify to the interest La Serre took even in the outward app earance of books.