« [T]o write and Lyme in Gold and Colours certain Letters » : correspondance diplomatique enluminée dans l’Angleterre de la première modernité

Abstract

This article shows how some of the limned letters exchanged between the British court and “Eastern princes” throughout the early modern period may be considered as diplomatic gifts and counter-gifts, by looking into their careful manufacture, the ceremonials around them and their political purpose. The first part of the article is devoted to the advent of this richly ornamented correspondence in Elizabethan England before its perpetuation and near-codification under the reign of James I. The second part of the article proposes a material and visual analysis of these letters in terms of both creation and reception, in order to compare them with other diplomatic gifts. Finally, the article looks at some of the limners responsible for decorating these letters, as well as the techniques they used, the better to understand how the curious art of limning lent itself particularly well to this intense international conversation and exchange of gifts and counter-gifts in epistolary form.

Keywords

• diplomacy
• correspondence
• limning
• Orient
• grotesque
• ornament