LA FONTAINE (Jean de). - Lot 47

LA FONTAINE (Jean de). Fables... with figures engraved by MM. Simon et Coiny. Paris : Bossange, Masson et Besson, An IV (1796 vulg. era). - 6 volumes in-16, 147 x 96: frontispiece, (2 ff.), 76 pp., 45 plates; (2 ff.), 75 pp., 50 plates; (2 ff.), 65 pp., 42 plates; (2 ff.), 106 pp., 45 plates; (2 ff.), 111 pp., 52 plates; (2 ff.), 136 pp., 41 plates. Purple calf, cold restoration plate and double gilt fillet framing the boards, ornate smooth spine, interior gilt roulette, gilt edges (binding circa 1820). Rochambeau, p. 54, no. 146. Sought-after edition, printed by Crapelet, copied from that given by Didot in 1787, W, including one frontispiece, engraved by Simon and Coiny after Vivier, the Prince de Bourbon's first painter. Beautiful copy on wove paper, in a rich, elegant binding of the 1820s, attributable to the Thouvenin workshop. Paul Culot, in his book Relieurs et reliures décorée en France à l'époque romantique, published in 1995, describes under number 76 a binding by Joseph Thouvenin with the same plate as on our copy.