DESRAIS, Claude Louis (1746-1816) – A manuscript transcription of Les Heures de Paphos with original drawings, France, late 18th–early 19th century.
DESRAIS, Claude Louis (1746-1816) – A manuscript transcription of Les Heures de Paphos with original drawings, France, late 18th–early 19th century.
DESRAIS, Claude Louis (1746-1816) – A manuscript transcription of Les Heures de Paphos with original drawings, France, late 18th–early 19th century.
DESRAIS, Claude Louis (1746-1816) – A manuscript transcription of Les Heures de Paphos with original drawings, France, late 18th–early 19th century.
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DESRAIS, Claude Louis (1746-1816) – A manuscript transcription of Les Heures de Paphos with original drawings, France, late 18th–early 19th century.

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DESRAIS, Claude Louis (1746-1816) – A manuscript transcription of Les Heures de Paphos with original drawings, France, late 18th–early 19th century.

Thirteen pen-and-ink and ink wash drawings with touches of watercolour (c.140 x c.90 mm) all on laid paper without watermark (200 x 165 mm); bound with a manuscript copy of the text, perhaps later, in black ink in a fine cursive hand with the initials in red and within a red double-rule border, on laid paper with horizontal chains and watermarked ‘MW’ above arms within a wreath and crowned. Bound in 19th-century vellum, the upper cover centred with a fine drawing of a clock face with phallic hands, titled in manuscript in black with initials in red and gilt, the lower cover centred with a drawing of a fool leading a priapic putto, spine titled in manuscript (text block neatly detached, spine panel with a split along the centre of the lower hinge and the vellum lifting); vellum-backed marbled paper chemise and slipcase. Provenance: note in a neat hand in red ink.

ALMOST CERTAINLY DESRAIS’S ORIGINAL DRAWINGS FOR LES HEURES DE PAPHOS. These highly accomplished and very expressive drawings are at a scale slightly larger, about a centimetre taller, than the published versions. Other than the title-page illustration, all drawings are before the text captions which appear in the published edition. They are bound in a finely painted vellum binding together with a manuscript copy of the text dating perhaps later, and in a sequence which varies from the published version (where none of the tales, plates or text leaves are numbered): the manuscript opens with the more controversial, anti-clerical tales, whereas the printed version opens more gently with the rather more gallant tales. Cf. Cohen-DeRicci 486; Dutel A-496; Pia Enfer, 611.
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