Certification of Arms and Genealogical Treatise

This manuscript is a legal certification of coats of arms and a genealogical treatise composed in Spain in 1782. It was compiled by Don Ramon Zazo of Ortega, historian and king at arms to Charles III, king of Spain, who signed the work on fol. 25v. The manuscript contains heraldic information, history, and genealogy of the Spanish families of Despuig or Puig, Pallas, Gelabert of Coscoll, and Mora. It was made for a descendent of these families: Don Antonio de Puig y Gelabert de Cascoll, Doctor of Laws and Advocate of the Royal Audience of Catalonia. It is decorated with two notable full-page heraldic miniatures, five heraldic text miniatures, illuminated initials, a fold-out decorated genealogical table, and four illuminated text headings. The illuminations use a palette of bright colors and an abundance of gold. Interleaves of crimson silk cover each miniature. The manuscript still retains two paper seals of the city of Madrid, one of which encloses a very small leaf painted with the coats of the Puig family.

Provenance

Provenance (from the French provenir, 'to come from/forth') is the chronology of the ownership, custody, or location of a historical object.

Don Antonio de Puig and Gelabert de Coscoll, Spain, 1782, by commission; Olivier Henry Perkins [date and mode of acquisition unknown]; William Randolph Hearst (1864-1951), New York and California, before 1941 [mode of acquisition unknown]; Mr. M. Hago, New York, February 1941, by purchase [through Gammer Galleries at Gimbels, lot. no. 1433, article 63]; Walters Art Museum, 1948, by purchase.