This is a very large book bound in leather (goat skin in this case) that has been dyed red, a very popular colour for royal book bindings. The binding, was decorated by hand, often with gold leaf, making each binding unique.

The gold decoration on the covers tells you that this is an important and expensive book, highlighted by the coat-of-arms of the king of France in the centre.

This book consists of full-page and double-page engraved pictures with hardly any text. The plates show important events of the French court, including firework displays, masked balls, weddings, and also funerals like this one. These so-called festival books were printed from 'eye-witness' accounts of court events, and served as important documents showing just how rich and powerful the French court was.

The engraved plate shows a funeral service for Elisabeth Therèse de Lorraine. It took place in Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris in 1741. Elisabeth died aged 29 after giving birth to her third child. She was the Queen of Sardinia, Duchess of Savoy and a relative of King Louis XV.

The funeral ceremonies, like wedding festivities or the birth of an heir, were vast theatrical spectacles and demonstrations of power.

Notre Dame was lavishly decorated for this commemorative ceremony with the richly decorated sarcophagus showing the coat-of-arms, stood on a raised platform. It was covered by a canapé with a bats-winged skeleton. The skeleton holds a scythe to represent death and to remind all, even the rich and powerful, that they have to die one day. Beneath the coffin you can see a rocklike structure and a woman disappearing into it with hands raised, begging to be saved from death - but in vain.