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Details
NICHOLAS EDME RESTIF DE LA BRETONNE (1734-1806)
Monument du costume physique et moral de la fin du dix-huitième siècle, ou Tableaux de la vie. Neuwied: La Société Typographique, 1789. 2° in single sheets (453 x 350mm). Typographic ornament on title. 26 engraved plates by Charles Baquoy, Camligue, Jean Dambrun, Jean-Louis Delignon, Carl Guttenberg, Henri Guttenberg, Louis-Michel Halbou, Isidore-Stanislas Helman, Robert de Launay, Georges Malbeste, Pierre-Antoine Martini, Jean-Baptiste Patas, Antoine-Louis Romanet, Jean-Baptiste Simonet, N. Thomas, and Phillippe Trière after Jean-Michel Moreau [24] and Sigismond Freudenberg [2], typographic ornaments and tailpieces. (Scattered light spotting and marking.) Late 19th-century crushed red morocco gilt by Pagnant, the text leaves and plates all mounted on guards, the covers with borders composed of 5 gilt fillets, gilt fleuron cornerpieces, the spine gilt in compartments, lettered in one, the others decorated with floral tools, gilt board edges, roll-tooled gilt turn-ins, gilt edges, card chemise (extremities lightly rubbed, minor superficial cracking on joints).
FIRST EDITION. The plates which illustrate this work are taken from a sequence originally published in three series under the title Suite d'estampes pour servir à l'histoire des moeurs et de costume des français au XVIIIe siècle between 1775 and 1783; twenty-six of the plates were then re-issued under the present title with a text commissioned from Restif de la Bretonne. The engravings depict scenes from the lives of a young lady of fashion and a young dandy, and are described by Ray as 'large in scale and masterly in conception. Though they are finished to the last detail, there is a superb naturalness about them unequalled elsewhere in eighteenth-century illustration [...] these scenes of high society [are] the most convincing validation of Talleyrand's observation that no one who had not lived in France in the years before the Revolution knew how sweet life could be'. Cohen-De Ricci col.881; Ray Art of the French Illustrated Book 55.
Monument du costume physique et moral de la fin du dix-huitième siècle, ou Tableaux de la vie. Neuwied: La Société Typographique, 1789. 2° in single sheets (453 x 350mm). Typographic ornament on title. 26 engraved plates by Charles Baquoy, Camligue, Jean Dambrun, Jean-Louis Delignon, Carl Guttenberg, Henri Guttenberg, Louis-Michel Halbou, Isidore-Stanislas Helman, Robert de Launay, Georges Malbeste, Pierre-Antoine Martini, Jean-Baptiste Patas, Antoine-Louis Romanet, Jean-Baptiste Simonet, N. Thomas, and Phillippe Trière after Jean-Michel Moreau [24] and Sigismond Freudenberg [2], typographic ornaments and tailpieces. (Scattered light spotting and marking.) Late 19th-century crushed red morocco gilt by Pagnant, the text leaves and plates all mounted on guards, the covers with borders composed of 5 gilt fillets, gilt fleuron cornerpieces, the spine gilt in compartments, lettered in one, the others decorated with floral tools, gilt board edges, roll-tooled gilt turn-ins, gilt edges, card chemise (extremities lightly rubbed, minor superficial cracking on joints).
FIRST EDITION. The plates which illustrate this work are taken from a sequence originally published in three series under the title Suite d'estampes pour servir à l'histoire des moeurs et de costume des français au XVIIIe siècle between 1775 and 1783; twenty-six of the plates were then re-issued under the present title with a text commissioned from Restif de la Bretonne. The engravings depict scenes from the lives of a young lady of fashion and a young dandy, and are described by Ray as 'large in scale and masterly in conception. Though they are finished to the last detail, there is a superb naturalness about them unequalled elsewhere in eighteenth-century illustration [...] these scenes of high society [are] the most convincing validation of Talleyrand's observation that no one who had not lived in France in the years before the Revolution knew how sweet life could be'. Cohen-De Ricci col.881; Ray Art of the French Illustrated Book 55.
Provenance
G. de Berny (armorial bookplate).
Anonymous sale; Christie's, London, 9 November 1983, lot 108 (to Dreesmann).
Dr Anton C.R. Dreesmann (inventory no. Y-7).
Anonymous sale; Christie's, London, 9 November 1983, lot 108 (to Dreesmann).
Dr Anton C.R. Dreesmann (inventory no. Y-7).
Special notice
Christie's charges a Buyer's premium calculated at 20.825% of the hammer price for each lot with a value up to €90,000. If the hammer price of a lot exceeds €90,000 then the premium for the lot is calculated at 20.825% of the first €90,000 plus 11.9% of any amount in excess of €90,000. Buyer's Premium is calculated on this basis for each lot individually.