?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 4,000 - $ 6,000
LA FONTAINE, JEAN DE. Contes et Nouvelles en Vers. Engraved frontispiece portraits of La Fontaine after Rigault and Charles Eisen after Vispré; 80 plates after Eisen, with those for Le Cas de Conscience and Le Diable de Papefiguière in "uncovered" state; 4 vignettes, 2 head- and 51 tailpieces by Choffard. xiv, [2], 268, [2], 8; [2], viii, [2], 306, [4], [9]-16 pages, including half-titles. 2 volumes. 8vo, 180x114 mm, brown morocco gilt by Riviere & Son with lacework border on covers, spines in 6 compartments, lettered in 2 with ornamental tooling in the rest, green silk doublures and endleaves, raised bands scuffed, front joints rubbed; contents washed with residual faint toning and light offsetting from plates, minor soiling on page 231 in first volume. Pencil collation note of Alwin J. Scheller dated 3 November 1932. Amsterdam [i. e., Paris], 1762
fermiers généraux edition, so named for having been commissioned by an association of tax collectors, generally regarded as Eisen's masterwork and one of the most famous French illustrated books of the 18th century. Cohen-de Ricci 558-70; Ray, The Art of the French Illustrated Book 26; Tchemerzine (1977) III, 862-63.
