Antique 1830 First Communion Certificate | Basset Engraving, Paris | Notre-Dame de Bourg | Jeannette Rossignol

A fine early 19th-century French First Communion certificate dated 21 March 1830, issued at the church of Notre-Dame de Bourg to a young girl named Jeannette Rossignol and signed by her parish priest.

The certificate is a copperplate engraving headed in script “Précieux souvenir si vous êtes fidèle” (“A precious keepsake, if you remain faithful”). The scene shows a priest holding the chalice before a draped canopy and tall candlesticks, flanked by two clergy in surplices, with a row of girls in white veils and dresses kneeling at the altar rail, while their parents look on from either side beneath the tall arched windows of the church.

Beneath the image, the printed text is completed by hand in brown ink:

“Jeannette Rossignol a fait sa 1re Communion dans l’Église de N.-D. de Bourg le 21 du mois de Mars de l’Année 1830”
(“Jeannette Rossignol made her First Communion in the Church of Notre-Dame de Bourg on the 21st of March in the year 1830”)

It bears the flourished signature of the curé. Publisher’s line: “à Paris chez Basset, rue St Jacques N° 64 – Déposé”, the well-known Parisian house of devotional and popular prints. Notre-Dame de Bourg is most likely the collegiate church of Notre-Dame in Bourg-en-Bresse.

A family pair: a companion certificate for Cécile Rossignol, almost certainly Jeannette’s sister, who received her First Communion in the same church on the very same day, signed by the same priest but printed from a different Basset plate, is also available in our shop – a rare chance to reunite two sisters’ keepsakes from 1830.

Details

• Type: engraved and hand-completed First Communion certificate
• Publisher: Basset, rue Saint-Jacques 64, Paris
• Date: 21 March 1830
• Language: French
• Size: sheet approx. 14.5 × 16.5 cm (5.7 × 6.5 in), laid on a card mount approx. 17.5 × 21 cm
• Condition: good; age toning, a small rust-coloured spot at left, uneven deckled edges, firmly mounted

An evocative piece of French Catholic family history, nearly two centuries old. The item you receive is the exact one pictured.