Les Mays De Notre-Dame De Paris, 1630-1707

The Mays of Notre-Dame de Paris are an exceptional collection of seventy-six religious paintings from the Grand Siècle. Every year on 1 May, from 1630 to 1707, the Parisian goldsmiths' guild offered Notre-Dame a large-format painting (about 4.50m by 3.50m) in homage to the Virgin Mary. These Mays, placed on the pillars of the cathedral, were dispersed during the Revolution. The subjects, sometimes unpublished, were decided and controlled by the canons of Notre-Dame. They illustrate the Acts of the Apostles, the Gospels or the founding themes of the Counter-Reformation. Most of the great artists of the period, including the first painter Charles Le Brun, Eustache Le Sueur, the Coypels, Laurent de La Hyre, Joseph Parrocel and the Boullogne brothers, thus participated in the renewal of religious iconography at a time of complex relations between the French Church, the monarchy and the papacy.

This book gathers the fifty-two Mays that have been located between Notre-Dame, the Louvre, provincial museums and various cathedrals and churches. Drawings, sketches, engravings, replicas and copies give an account of almost all the lost Mays and the complete iconography of this unique cycle is finally restored.