Cloth Seal, French, Nimes Silk / Serge Seal, I.L.Jaussaud et comp., Image & Found by Andreas Grubstad Paulsen.
Found in North Norway, ?mm.
Crocodile beneath a palm tree, COLNE(M) / NISMES // .I.E. / (M)AUSSELY / ET / COMP
A single disc cloth seal for Nimes silk or serge.
See No.346 Fig.46, Geoff Egan,'Lead cloth seals and related items in the B.M. (B.M.occ.papers 93)', "palm tree and crocodile, COL NE(M) to sides, NIMES below // fleur-de-lis, PIERRE LARNAC around ..... The abbreviation stands for Colonia Nemauensis, the Latin name for Nimes, and the main device is the city's arms (these refer to the foundation of the original Roman colonia at Nimes by army veterans from Egypt). ... a similar seal of an early eighteenth-century Nimes maker of silk stockins and cloth, David Baumer, was found in a wreck off eastern Mexico."
From Paul Cannon, "I would like to suggest an alternative reading of this seal: .I.L. / IAUSSAUD / ET / COMP As in English I can see that in French the letter ‘I’ is an earlier chirographic form of the letter ‘J’. The name it records can therefore be J.L. Jaussaud and Company.
Michael Sonenscher produced a thesis for a Doctor of Philosophy (University of Warwick) on “Royalists and Patriots: Nimes and its Hinterland in the late Eighteenth Century” (1977). A considerable part of the thesis, written in English, describes the framework knitters of Nimes at this time and contains a huge amount of information about the industry and people involved in it. [NB the copy from which this has been made has some of the page numbers cut off] At the end of Chapter 9 (p165) it contains, as Appendix A, Commercial Houses in Nimes, 1789. Under ‘Manufacturers of Silk Stockings’, he records ‘Jaussaud (J.L.) & Cie’. The source of this information is given on p166. Unfortunately the 554 pages of the thesis are not indexed so there may be other references to J. L. Jaussaud. This seal is not recorded in Daniel Slowik’s catalogue [“Les plombs de scellé; L’industrie de la soie de Nîmes” (2016)]
The surname Jaussaud would still appear to be quite common in Nimes.
Philippe Lanez includes a list of Nimes’ merchants for 1772 amongst the recent emails on Montauban seals. This includes JL Jaussaud and Comp and takes the dating of the Jaussaud seal back a further 17 years at least ie 1772-1789."
From Things to See in the Languedoc: Historic Cities: Nîmes "The city’s coat of arms shows a crocodile chained to a palm tree - the device dates back to Roman times and commemorates the defeat of Mark Anthony on the Nile by the Emperor Augustus. The connection is that Augustus rewarded his legionaries with grants of land in the Roman colony here. ...... In the Middle Ages wool and silk industries brought wealth to the city. It was here that a particularly adaptable type of serge material originated. Serge “De Nîmes”, hence denim, found its way to America in 1870."
See BSG.CS.01747 for a different seal from the same merchants.
