LA FONTAINE (Jean de).

Lot 157
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Estimation :
1000 - 1200 EUR
Result with fees
Result : 1 074EUR
LA FONTAINE (Jean de).
Contes et nouvelles. New edition decorated with vignettes. Paris, A. Braulard, imprimeur en taille-douce, 1835. Two volumes large in-8, half lavaliere long-grained morocco with corners, spine ornate, untrimmed, printed covers and spine preserved (Stroobants). First edition. Engraved title-frontispice, portrait of La Fontaine and thirty steel-engraved plates hors texte after Eugène André, Ducornet, A. Champion and Alfred Albert. Mona Lisa and The Muleteer are illustrated with two different plates for the same scene, the first not having satisfied the publisher (who nevertheless kept them), as indicated in a rare Notice to subscribers printed on yellow paper here mounted at the head. Nine other plates have been retouched with different legends and appear here in double state for seven of them, in triple state for the two others. The one of the Ear Maker is present in both versions mentioned by Brivois and Vicaire. Rare edition, published without printed title or mention of the printer. Note the curious addition to the signature of the painter Louis-Joseph-César Ducornet (1806 - 1856), "born without arms". The artist, suffering from phocomelia, effectively born without arms or femurs, had only four toes on his feet, which he used to paint, not without a real talent. A very fine and exceptional copy, with its general covers complete with spines in perfect condition and enriched, in addition to the various states of the engravings, with the covers of 27 of the 31 issues, covers of two types, as in the copy of the Bibliothèque Nationale (cf. Vicaire, IV, 917). From the libraries of Victor Mercier (I, 1937, n° 392) and Albert Natural, with their bookplates.
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