Details
LA FONTAINE, Jean de. Fables choisies, mises en vers. Edited by C.P. de Monthenault d'Egly. Paris: Charles-Antoine Jombert, for Desaint & Saillant, and Durand, 1755-59.
4 volumes, large 2° (462 x 327mm). LARGE-PAPER ISSUE. Engraved frontispiece after Jean-Baptiste Oudry, finished by Dupuis and engraved by Cochin, 275 plates after Oudry, engraved by Cochin, Elisabeth Cousinet, Baquoy, Legrand, and others wood-engraved vignette on each title, wood-engraved head- and tailpieces after Bachelier. (Neat tear in plate I:p.96 extending slightly into plate, neatly repaired and without loss, small light stain in outer margin of 2 plates.) Contemporary French gold-tooled red morocco, covers with gilt border, gilt spine in compartments, gilt turn-ins, marbled endpapers, g.e., by Bisiaux, with his label on title of vol.I, in modern cloth clamshell box. Provenance: Edward Arnold, armorial bookplate.
This luxurious edition of the Fables grew out of sketches made by Oudry for his own enjoyment. Cochin was chosen to turn them into finished prints, first redrawing them, and the result was "one of the most ambitious and successful of all illustrated books" (Ray). The present copy is a LARGE-PAPER ISSUE, printed on paper from the C & I Honig papermill in Holland (marked with the Strassburg lily, Churchill 408), and the plate accompanying "Le Singe et le Léopard" (vol. III facing p.112) is in the first state without lettering on the banner. Cohen-de Ricci 548-550; Ray French, 5; Rochambeau 86; Sander 1065. (4)
4 volumes, large 2° (462 x 327mm). LARGE-PAPER ISSUE. Engraved frontispiece after Jean-Baptiste Oudry, finished by Dupuis and engraved by Cochin, 275 plates after Oudry, engraved by Cochin, Elisabeth Cousinet, Baquoy, Legrand, and others wood-engraved vignette on each title, wood-engraved head- and tailpieces after Bachelier. (Neat tear in plate I:p.96 extending slightly into plate, neatly repaired and without loss, small light stain in outer margin of 2 plates.) Contemporary French gold-tooled red morocco, covers with gilt border, gilt spine in compartments, gilt turn-ins, marbled endpapers, g.e., by Bisiaux, with his label on title of vol.I, in modern cloth clamshell box. Provenance: Edward Arnold, armorial bookplate.
This luxurious edition of the Fables grew out of sketches made by Oudry for his own enjoyment. Cochin was chosen to turn them into finished prints, first redrawing them, and the result was "one of the most ambitious and successful of all illustrated books" (Ray). The present copy is a LARGE-PAPER ISSUE, printed on paper from the C & I Honig papermill in Holland (marked with the Strassburg lily, Churchill 408), and the plate accompanying "Le Singe et le Léopard" (vol. III facing p.112) is in the first state without lettering on the banner. Cohen-de Ricci 548-550; Ray French, 5; Rochambeau 86; Sander 1065. (4)