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Details
IMPRIMERIE ROYALE. Specimen typographique de l'Imprimerie Royale. Paris: Imprimerie Royale, 1845.
2o (419 x 299 mm). 213 leaves [numbered through 202, with 21 bis, 21 ter., 79 bis, 92 bis, 95 bis, 103 bis, 103 ter., 104 bis, 183 bis, 183 ter., 183 quat.], one folding. Engraved printer's device on title, type specimens printed within borders on rectos only, at end 27 color-printed leaves of ornament designs. (Some occasional pale spotting.) PRESENTATION BINDING FOR KING LOUIS-PHILIPPE: red morocco by the Imprimerie Royale bindery, decorated with blind and gilt tools in the elaborate "rocaille Louis-Philippe" style, with the King's initials surrounded by a wreath and crowns in gilt at center of each side, blue watered-silk linings, edges gilt (front joint split at head, some minor wear to board edges); morocco-faced slipcase. Provenance: King Louis-Philippe (1773-1850, binding); Hans Fürstenberg (bookplate).
KING LOUIS-PHILIPPE'S COPY, UNDER WHOSE AUSPICES THE WORK WAS PRINTED
"EXEMPLAIRE NO. 1," an advance, or trial, issue of the most extensive specimen book ever issued by the press: without the Notice sur les Types Étrangers & Français (33 pages), which precedes the finished work. "This magnificent specimen-book, also issued under the auspices of King Louis Philippe, is printed with the luxury which a royal purse alone could command, comprising examples of all the founts contained in the French Royal Printing-office at the date of its publication. They include every language which at the time possessed a written alphabet, and not only living and spoken languages, but those dead and archaic...The great importance of this volume, not merely as a history of the great French establishment, but in its relation to the history of type-founding, will be obvious" (Bigmore & Wyman I, 358-361).
"The history of the bindery attached to the Imprimerie Royale appears to go back to the latter's reorganization by J.J. Marcel under Napoleon I. When in 1805 Pope Pius VII visited the Imprimerie Impériale, as it then was, not only was the Lord's Prayer in 150 languages printed before his eyes, but a copy of it was immediately bound in his presence in the bindery 'by a special process'. Béraldi states that during the Restauration the official publications of the Imprimerie were bound in good calf bindings for the ministries, and in rich gilt morocco bindings for the King and the Crown Prince; however, the three bindings he reproduces, all date from the time of Louis-Philippe, one of them, bound for the King, on a book dated 1819 and not printed by the Imprimerie. The atelier, under the direction of a certain Courtois, perhaps identical with the binder working in Paris at various addresses 1826-1843, continued its activity into the Second Empire. No study of its history has been published until now. The volume was certainly intended for presentation to the King. Whether it was actually offered to him is not clear: it is not stamped with the Palais Royal stamp as is the Marsand [see lot 98 in the First Portion]. Perhaps this trial copy was retained and a copy of the work in its final form given to the King. He, in fact, owned a copy in boards, according to the sale catalogue of 1852, Part I, lot 595" (BBB Wittockiana 32). BBB Harvard 27.
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KING LOUIS-PHILIPPE'S COPY, UNDER WHOSE AUSPICES THE WORK WAS PRINTED
"EXEMPLAIRE NO. 1," an advance, or trial, issue of the most extensive specimen book ever issued by the press: without the Notice sur les Types Étrangers & Français (33 pages), which precedes the finished work. "This magnificent specimen-book, also issued under the auspices of King Louis Philippe, is printed with the luxury which a royal purse alone could command, comprising examples of all the founts contained in the French Royal Printing-office at the date of its publication. They include every language which at the time possessed a written alphabet, and not only living and spoken languages, but those dead and archaic...The great importance of this volume, not merely as a history of the great French establishment, but in its relation to the history of type-founding, will be obvious" (Bigmore & Wyman I, 358-361).
"The history of the bindery attached to the Imprimerie Royale appears to go back to the latter's reorganization by J.J. Marcel under Napoleon I. When in 1805 Pope Pius VII visited the Imprimerie Impériale, as it then was, not only was the Lord's Prayer in 150 languages printed before his eyes, but a copy of it was immediately bound in his presence in the bindery 'by a special process'. Béraldi states that during the Restauration the official publications of the Imprimerie were bound in good calf bindings for the ministries, and in rich gilt morocco bindings for the King and the Crown Prince; however, the three bindings he reproduces, all date from the time of Louis-Philippe, one of them, bound for the King, on a book dated 1819 and not printed by the Imprimerie. The atelier, under the direction of a certain Courtois, perhaps identical with the binder working in Paris at various addresses 1826-1843, continued its activity into the Second Empire. No study of its history has been published until now. The volume was certainly intended for presentation to the King. Whether it was actually offered to him is not clear: it is not stamped with the Palais Royal stamp as is the Marsand [see lot 98 in the First Portion]. Perhaps this trial copy was retained and a copy of the work in its final form given to the King. He, in fact, owned a copy in boards, according to the sale catalogue of 1852, Part I, lot 595" (BBB Wittockiana 32). BBB Harvard 27.