Aug 13, 2020 - Sale 2544

Sale 2544 - Lot 1

Price Realized: $ 975
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,000 - $ 1,200

Le Bijou de Société ou L'Amusement des Graces.
16mo, 101 pages and plates; some plates trimmed down and mounted; bound in later olive calfskin, elaborately tooled in gilt on boards and spine, rare at auction; 12 1/2 x8 cm. Paphos [Paris]: [no printer], L'An des Plaisirs [1784].

This anonymous erotica imprint is illustrated with engraved plates attributed to Desrais and Brichet. Engraved throughout, with engraved text pages in verse attributed to Rousseau, Ferrand, Grecourt, Piron, and others facing engraved illustrations depicting various scandalous sexual situations and other topics controversial for the period, including gender, sexuality, same-sex encounters, and sexual acts of Christian clergy members.

Worldcat locates ten copies of this edition worldwide.

The LGBTQ themed epigrams in Le Bijou de Société are the work of the French playwright and poet Jean-Baptiste Rousseau (1671-1741), exiled and hounded by an avalanche of homophobic attacks in the mid 18th century.

Gay-Lemonnier I, 400. Peignot 201.Paphos [Paris]: [no printer], L'An des Plaisirs [1784].

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