Fables Nouvelles, Dedièes au Roy. Avec un Discourse sur la Fable.
Paris: Chez Gregoire Dupuis; De l’Imprimerie de Jean Baptiste Coignard, Imprimeur Ordinaire du Roy, 1719. Item #943 Large 4to. 265 x 185 mm., [10 ¼ x 7 ½ inches]. xlii, 1-120, 131-140, 131-358, [2] pp; page numbers 121-130 were misprinted as 131-140 and then repeated, signatures correct and text complete. Illustrated with an engraved frontispiece by Coypel, engraved by Dardieu; title-page vignette designed by Vleughels and engraved by Simoneau; 100 one-third page vignettes, of which 67 are designed and engraved by Claude Gillot; with other vignettes by Coypel, Edelinck, B. Picart engraved by Cochin, Edelinck, P. Picart, Simoneau and Tardieu. Large paper copy with wide margins. Bound in contemporary sprinkled calf gilt spine; some minor scrapes to binding, but otherwise an excellent copy in contemporary condition. “The eighteenth century perfected a fresh, seductive format for books subsidized by wealthy patrons for wealthy bibliophiles. These books were not meant to be read but rather to be admired two facing pages at a time. In 1719 Claude Gillot, Watteau’s teacher, diminished Louis XIV’s royal folio format into a neat block of type and picture. Gillot was the next French printmaker after Callot to see with and grace in the everyday and to keep pace with comedians.” [Hyatt Mayer, Prints and People, 362]. “Cette edition occupe dans l’histoire du livre une place exceptionnelle, car, il s’agit du premier en date des livres illustrés dans l’esprit du XVIIIe siècle.” [Dacier, “Le premier livres illustre du XVIIIe siècle eb France” in Trésors de Bibliothéques, V, 1927.]. “Trés belle edition rare et recherché. Elle existe en grand papier.” [Cohen, Guide de l’Amateur de Livres a Gravures du XVIIIe Siécle, 594.]
Price: $1,950.00