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Details
MONRO, Alexander (1697-1767). Traité d'Ostéologie. Paris: Guillaume Cavelier, 1759.
2 volumes, 2o (590 x 425 mm). Engraved allegorial frontispiece in vol. 1, engraved vignettes on title-pages, engraved head- and tail-pieces, and 62 engraved plates (31 in outline) (some occasional marginal soiling and dampstaining, some minor spotting). Modern quarter morocco. Provenance: Ira M. Rutkow (pencil signature on rear flyleaf).
FIRST EDITION IN FRENCH of Alexander Monro (Primus') classic textbook on the anatomy of the bones, which was originally published in 1726 as an octavo volume without plates, and went through more than ten editions. The French translation, published in large folio, translated and edited by the anatomist Jean Joseph Sue (1710-92) was the most sumptuous edition ever published. Sue, a surgeon and professor of anatomy at the Académie Royale de Peinture, later published an anatomy for painters and sculptors (1788). His deluxe edition of Monro was illustrated with an elegant allegorical frontispiece, engraved vignettes, and 62 plates, of which 31 were outline plates, by various engravers. Remarkably Roberts & Tomlinson suggest that the translation of this work may have been done by Marie-Geneviève-Charlotte Thiroux d'Arconville, who also may have supervised the production of the illustrations. If so, this is probably the first anatomical work produced by a woman, and it is not hard to understand how such a work needed to be issued under a man's name at the time. D'Arconville had studied anatomy at the Jardin du Roi. Choulant-Frank p. 324; Duval & Cuyer, Histoire de l'Anatomie Plastique (1898) pp. 233-45; NLM/Blake 309; Roberts & Tomlinson pp. 438-45; Russell, British Anatomy 590. (2)
2 volumes, 2
FIRST EDITION IN FRENCH of Alexander Monro (Primus') classic textbook on the anatomy of the bones, which was originally published in 1726 as an octavo volume without plates, and went through more than ten editions. The French translation, published in large folio, translated and edited by the anatomist Jean Joseph Sue (1710-92) was the most sumptuous edition ever published. Sue, a surgeon and professor of anatomy at the Académie Royale de Peinture, later published an anatomy for painters and sculptors (1788). His deluxe edition of Monro was illustrated with an elegant allegorical frontispiece, engraved vignettes, and 62 plates, of which 31 were outline plates, by various engravers. Remarkably Roberts & Tomlinson suggest that the translation of this work may have been done by Marie-Geneviève-Charlotte Thiroux d'Arconville, who also may have supervised the production of the illustrations. If so, this is probably the first anatomical work produced by a woman, and it is not hard to understand how such a work needed to be issued under a man's name at the time. D'Arconville had studied anatomy at the Jardin du Roi. Choulant-Frank p. 324; Duval & Cuyer, Histoire de l'Anatomie Plastique (1898) pp. 233-45; NLM/Blake 309; Roberts & Tomlinson pp. 438-45; Russell, British Anatomy 590. (2)