Pierre Laujon
Posted by John Bidwell
Tuesday, August 30, 2011 11:51:00 AM
Pierre Laujon (1727-1811). Les a propos de societé, ou, Chansons de M. L. Paris : Joseph-Gérard Barbou, 1776. 3 vols. Purchased on the Gordon N. Ray Fund, 2011.
Party planner and bon vivant, Pierre Laujon made his living by organizing little entertainments for great princes and writing light verse for grand occasions. His ballets, operas, and pastorales gained him a modest reputation and belated admission to the French Academy. This collection of his songs and ballads contains letterpress music and engraved illustrations by Moreau le Jeune, a master at depicting the pleasures and pastimes of the ancien régime. Here he depicts a fashionable novelty, a magic lantern, the theme of a song sequence Laujon composed in honor of Princess Maria Theresa of Savoy, wife of the future Charles X.