Père Philippe Labbé - Tableaux genealogiques de la Maison Royale de France et le Blazon Royal - 1654

The Genealogical Tables: they list the members of the different branches of the French royal family (Capetians, Valois, Bourbons) as well as the six historical lay peerages: Burgundy, Normandy, Guyenne, Toulouse, Flanders, and Champagne. Labbe provides abridged biographical and chronological notices on the life of each figure.

The Royal Blazon: this section is a treatise on heraldry. It offers a precise textual description (the blazon) of the coats of arms borne by the kings, queens, the dauphins, as well as by the major allied families of the French Crown.

The presence of an ex-libris by Michel Wittock profoundly changes things and significantly raises the book’s value. Michel Wittock (1936-2020) was one of the greatest and most famous European bibliophiles of the 20th century. A passionate Belgian industrialist, he built a legendary collection of thousands of art bindings and old books (ranging from the 16th century to the contemporary era) and even founded his own museum in Brussels, the Wittockiana.

The label visible on the image is not a family coat of arms, but the bookseller mark of the famous dynasty of booksellers-experts Van der Perre in Brussels, more precisely of Francine Van der Perre, whose historic shop was located at 21, Rue de la Madeleine. (located at the end of the book).
The Van der Perre family is one of the oldest and most respected signatures in high-end bibliophilia in Belgium, renowned for its expertise in valuable books and in ancient engravings.

This double provenance (Van der Perre Bookshop + Michel Wittock Collection) is excellent. It reinforces the clear and prestigious history of the work.