SAUNIER, Jean de. La parfaite connoissance des chevaux, leur anatomie, leurs bonnes et mauvaises qualitez, leurs maladies et les remedes qui y conviennent, edited by Gaspard de Saunier (1663-1748). The Hague: printed for the author and sold by Adrien Moetjens, 1734. 2° (393 x 243mm). Title printed in red and black with engraved vignette by D. Coster, engraved frontispiece portrait of Gaspard de Saunier by and after Coster and 61 plates by and after François Morellon La Cave, François van Bleyswyck, and Ernst Ludwig Creite, engraved headpiece, woodcut initials and head- and tailpieces (some variable light spotting and browning, principally affecting text, very light marginal dampstaining in latter quires). 20th-century calf-backed boards, gilt spine (extremities lightly rubbed and bumped, some slight fading). Provenance: François Liaudet, Ecole Savoie (inkstamps). FIRST EDITION of this work on equine anatomy and hippiatrics by Jean de Saunier, Inspecteur de la Grande Ecurie du Roy de France, which was edited by his son Gaspard de Saunier, riding-master at the Academy of the University of Leiden, and illustrated with fine anatomical plates (which Nissen states, whilst claiming to be drawn from nature, are in fact derived from those illustrating Carlo Ruini's Dell' Anatomia e dell' infermita del cavallo). The work was subsequently translated into German as Vollständige Erkenntniss von Pferden (Glogau, 1767) and into English as Guide to the Perfect Knowledge of Horses (London, 1769). Although Mennessier de la Lance and Nissen both call for 6 unpaginated preliminary leaves, this copy appears to be complete with 4, signed [*]1-2*2. Brunet V, 149; Cohen-De Ricci 940; Huth, p.31; Mennessier de la Lance 490; NLM/Blake p. 402; Nissen ZBI 3592.