Fables choisies, mises en vers - photo 1
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Fables choisies, mises en vers - photo 3
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Fables choisies, mises en vers

Lot 135
02.02.2024 10:00UTC -05:00
Classic
Starting price
$ 100
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUSA, New York
Archive
The auction is completed. No bids can be placed anymore.
Archive
ID 1129756
Lot 135 | Fables choisies, mises en vers
Estimate value
$ 60 000 – 90 000
LA FONTAINE, Jean de (1621-1695). Fables choisies, mises en vers. Illustrated with engravings after Jean-Baptiste Oudry. Paris: Desaint & Saillant et Durand, 1755-1759.

Large paper copy in contemporary red morocco of this paragon of French bookmaking. Among the most stunning achievements of 18th-century illustration and printing. This work is the most celebrated edition of La Fontaine’s iconic Fables, due in large part to the masterful engraved illustrations by Jean-Baptiste Oudry. Many of them are likely inspired by designs Oudry produced while working as the director and painter at the Beauvais tapestry works, although he often sketched various fables throughout his career for “his own pleasure, and in those moments of joy and fancy when an artist vividly captures the ideas inspired by his subject, and when he gives free rein to his genius” (p. iv). The present edition is the culmination of the style of bookmaking developed during the reign of Louis XIV, as well as of Oudry’s career as a great French animalier, wherein the harmonious combination of text, ornamentation, and illustrations are all produced in their highest quality to immortalize this legendary French literary work. The plate for fable CLXXI (le singe et le leopard) does not have 'le leopard' on the signboard.

Brunet III, 753; Cohen-de Ricci 548-550 (“magnifique ouvrage"); C. Lesage, “La Fortune des Fables au XVIIIe siècle", 1995, pp. 160-165 ("Les deux cent soixante-quinze dessins de Jean-Baptiste Oudry … vont donner naissance à l'édition la plus prestigieuse et la plus copiée du siècle et à de très nombreuses déclinaisons dans les Arts décoratifs…"); Tchemerzine III, 874-875 (“édition magnifique…par les meilleurs graveurs du temps").

Four volumes, folio (466 x 311mm). Half titles; numerous engraved head- and tailpieces printed on Holland paper; engraved allegorical bust frontispiece of La Fontaine by Oudry, finished by Dupuis and engraved by Cochin, portrait title of Oudry by Tardieu after the 1729 portrait by Largillière and 275 engraved plates by Chedel, Cochin, Dupuis, Fessard and other eminent artists after Oudry (minor marginal smudges and thumbing, small repair to closed tear on p. 149 of vol. IV). Contemporary red morocco by Derome with tools "a l'oiseau,” boards richly gilt in a frame made of small tools, within a double gilt fillet, and a leaf and flower rolled border, spines gilt stamped in six compartments and lettered in the upper two, gilt turn-ins, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt, with green silk page markers (extremities rubbed, with precise repairs to spine caps). Four custom marbled slipcases (head-cap detached on one). Provenance: La Comtesse de Montessuy (?) – Eugene Paillet (with his signature, see Catalogue des livres etc., Paris, D. Morgand, 1887 no 422) – Emile Muller (no. 127) – Le Comte de Mosbourg (no. 121) – Hemour (no. 16) – Adolphe Bordes (book label). OS 324 (1963) – Otto-Schäfer-Stiftung, 1912-2000 (his sale, Sotheby’s 27 June 1995, lot 121).
Address of auction CHRISTIE'S
20 Rockefeller Plaza
10020 New York
USA
Preview
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