Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375)

Lot 159
09.12.2020 00:00UTC +00:00
Classic
Starting price
£ 3 000
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
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ID 470242
Lot 159 | Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375)
Estimate value
£ 3 000 – 5 000
Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375)

Il Decamerone. 1757-1761

BOCCACCIO, Giovanni (1313-1375). Il Decamerone. 'Londra' [Paris]: n.p. [Ranieri & Giovanni Antonio de' Calzabigi and François Gerbault], 1757 [-1761].



'One of the masterpieces of the illustrated book' (Ray). Some of the finest illustrators of their day contributed to this Decameron, including Eisen, Boucher, and Cochin, but it is rightly considered Gravelot’s masterpiece: more than two-thirds of the plates and all of the tailpieces are by him. The same publishers issued a French translation in the same year, but 'the earlier Italian text has better impressions of the illustrations' (Ray). Cohen-de Ricci 158-160; Ray, French, 15.



Five volumes, octavo (205 x 125mm). 116 engraved plates, including the portrait of Boccaccio and five frontispieces, most by Le Mire after Gravelot, many with a printed mark on the verso in the lower margin, engraved head- and tail-pieces throughout (first frontispiece cut-down and mounted, occasional faint and insignificant browning). Contemporary French red morocco with flat spines gilt in compartments, sides with triple gilt fillet border with small corner fleurons, gilt edges and turn-ins, marbled endpapers; housed in two modern cloth boxes. Provenance: Maire (contemporary Lyon bookseller's letterpress label on front pastedown in vol. I).

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