DUBOS (Jean-Baptiste). Critical reflections on poetry and painting. Fifth edition revised, corrected & increased by the Author. Paris : Pierre-Jean Mariette, 1746. - 2 volumes in-12, 163 x 93 : (6 ff.), 488 pp., (2 ff.) ; (4 ff.), 567 pp. Marbled calf, smooth spine decorated with gilt cats, red edges (contemporary binding). New posthumous edition of this important work by the abbé Jean-Baptiste Dubos (1670-1742), member of the Académie française. First published in 1719 and subsequently reissued several times, this work was as much appreciated in France as abroad and inspired some of the greatest authorities in the doctrine of beauty and fine arts in the 18th century such as Diderot, Lessing and Winkelmann. Voltaire himself commented on it in a letter of 1738: "All artists read it with fruit, it is the most useful book that has ever been written on these subjects in any nation of Europe. What makes the goodness of this work, is that there are only few errors and many true, new and deep reflections. It is not a methodical book; but the author thinks, and makes people think. He did not know music, however; he had never been able to make verses, and did not have a painting; but he had read a lot, seen, heard and thought.". EXAMPLE OF THE MARQUISE MARIE DU DEFFAND (1697-1780), bearing her emblem on the spine representing a seated cat. Marie du Deffand, born Marie de Vichy-Champrond, was a woman of letters. She married the marquis Du Deffand, lieutenant general of Orléans, when she left the convent. After her husband's death, she moved into the apartment formerly inhabited by Mme de Montespan where she received great lords, witty and cultured, as well as men of letters and science, such as the duke and duchess of Choiseul, the Boufflers, the duchess of La Vallière, Turgot, Loménie de Brienne, but also Fontenelle, Voltaire, Marmontel, Marivaux, Diderot, D'Alembert, Horace Walpole, etc. The letters she addressed in great number to several of these personalities form a unique collection on the history of society in the 18th century. Head cover of the first volume damaged, rubbing from use, corners slightly dulled. See for this same provenance the number 95.