Fables Choisies Mises en Vers par J. de la Fontaine: Nouvelle Edition Gravée en taille-douce, Vol. I
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Authors
La Fontaine, Jean de
Issue Date
1765
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I came home, having found this set of six volumes at Librairie de l'Avenue, to discover that I had already bought a set of six from the same people fourteen years earlier. Now, however, a closer look turns up a fascinating addition in this first volume of the newly bought set. After one turns the front endpaper and a first page, one is looking at a title-page mentioning 1981; Hugues de Fleurville; and 9, Faubourg Saint-Honoré. Turn the page and we see on the left "Ex-Libris" and on the right Hugues de Fleurville's "Certificat," including "766" and a signature. None of these three pages appear in the set bought fourteen years ago. Surprise! I will include in the collection the other five volumes and their torn box, even though these volumes are apparently exact duplicates of those in the earlier set. As I wrote then, 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. 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. One fable provides several of my favorite illustrations in this volume: "L'Enfant et le Maître d'École" facing 43 and on 43 and 44. Lovely leather bindings, marbled endpapers, a page-marking ribbon, and gilded page-edges all the way around. There are of course a life of Aesop and a life of La Fontaine at the beginning of this volume.
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Valmer-Bibliophilie
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13421 (Access ID)