Fables Choisies Mises en Vers J. de la Fontaine: Nouvelle Edition Gravée en taille-douce, Vol. V
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Authors
La Fontaine, Jean de
Issue Date
1774
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This volume replicates one already in the collection, except that it belongs to a numbered set. As I wrote of the volume found earlier, this is a curious set of six volumes, beautifully bound, replicating the Fessard edition of 1765-75, as the colophon near the end of the book points out. This fifth volume (Books 9 and 10) was published in 1774. The good news is that there is now some represention of Fessard's work in the collection. Metzner writes in Bodemann that this is the first fully engraved LaFontaine edition. Montulay was apparently the engraver for the texts. The engraved illustrations are presented in frames similar to those one would find around Oudry's work. The reproductions are, I would say, no better than adequate. Almost every fable receives three illustrations: a full-page engraving, a headpiece, and a tailpiece. Metzner gives a good sense of the artistic sources for each volume, but I am surprised not to find Oudry mentioned. Perhaps these engravings remind me of his work because they reflect the same culture and artistic tendencies. The tailpiece on 27 does a great job of showing the results of the "case" in "L'Huître et les Plaideurs": we see two empty halves of an oyster shell! The engravings facing 41 and on 41 contrast beautifully the two men's different fates today in dealing with treasure. Lovely leather bindings, marbled endpapers, a page-marking ribbon, and gilded page-edges all the way around.
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Valmer-Bibliophilie
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13425 (Access ID)