![SUBLEYRAS, Luigi (18th century), Etienne LAVALLÉE-POUSSIN (1735-1892) and Hubert ROBERT (1733-1808). Nella Venuta in Roma di Madama Le Comte e dei Signori Watelet, e Copette. [Rome], 1764.](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2013/NYR/2013_NYR_02800_0705_000(subleyras_luigi_etienne_lavallee-poussin_and_hubert_robert_nella_venut100305).jpg?w=1)
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SUBLEYRAS, Luigi (18th century), Etienne LAVALLÉE-POUSSIN (1735-1892) and Hubert ROBERT (1733-1808). Nella Venuta in Roma di Madama Le Comte e dei Signori Watelet, e Copette. [Rome], 1764.
8o (175 x 123 mm). Etched and engraved throughout, comprising 32 etchings and engravings each printed one to a page, with a proof of plate IX laid-in. Red morocco gilt, edges gilt, by Bumpus of Oxford. Provenance: Lionel Salomons (bookplate); acquired from Marlborough Rare Books, 1986.
FIRST EDITION of this souvenir of a visit to Rome by a small party of French tourists: Claude-Henri Watelet (author of L'Art de Peindre, 1760); his mistress, Madame Le Comte; and his former art teacher, the Abbe Coppette. Two of Watelet's pupils were also invited: Savalette de Buchelat and the Tyrolean engraver Franz Edmund Weirotter. The party left in 1763, stopping at Turin where they were received by the King of Sardinia. Upon their arrival in Rome, they were fêted at both the French Academy and at the French Embassy.
In honor of the visit, students at the French Academy in Rome produced this work. Designed by Lavallée-Poussin, seven of the plates were engraved by Weirotter, and there are two decorative borders with miniature views of Rome by Hubert Robert. Each scene is placed opposite a Petrarchan sonnet by Louis Subleyras, son of the Rome-based painter Pierre Subleyras. Philip Hofer considered this "the most charming of engraved books" and issued a small booklet on it with an introductory essay and reproductions of some of the plates (A Visit to Rome in 1764, Cambridge, MA, 1956). Brunet V:576; Cohen-de Ricci 960-61.
8o (175 x 123 mm). Etched and engraved throughout, comprising 32 etchings and engravings each printed one to a page, with a proof of plate IX laid-in. Red morocco gilt, edges gilt, by Bumpus of Oxford. Provenance: Lionel Salomons (bookplate); acquired from Marlborough Rare Books, 1986.
FIRST EDITION of this souvenir of a visit to Rome by a small party of French tourists: Claude-Henri Watelet (author of L'Art de Peindre, 1760); his mistress, Madame Le Comte; and his former art teacher, the Abbe Coppette. Two of Watelet's pupils were also invited: Savalette de Buchelat and the Tyrolean engraver Franz Edmund Weirotter. The party left in 1763, stopping at Turin where they were received by the King of Sardinia. Upon their arrival in Rome, they were fêted at both the French Academy and at the French Embassy.
In honor of the visit, students at the French Academy in Rome produced this work. Designed by Lavallée-Poussin, seven of the plates were engraved by Weirotter, and there are two decorative borders with miniature views of Rome by Hubert Robert. Each scene is placed opposite a Petrarchan sonnet by Louis Subleyras, son of the Rome-based painter Pierre Subleyras. Philip Hofer considered this "the most charming of engraved books" and issued a small booklet on it with an introductory essay and reproductions of some of the plates (A Visit to Rome in 1764, Cambridge, MA, 1956). Brunet V:576; Cohen-de Ricci 960-61.