Peter Bichsel   Fine Books

La Fontaine, Jean de. Oudry, Jean Baptiste. Fables choisies mises en vers. (Ed. by L. R. de Montenault). 4 vols.

With frontispiece after J. B. Oudry engr. by C. N. Cochin, 275 plates after J. B. Oudry redesigned by Cochin and engr. by 42 of the best engravers of the time, and many woodcut culs-de-lampe after Jean-Jacques Bachelier. (4), XXX, XVIII, 124 pp.; (4), II, 135 pp.; (4), VI, 146 pp.; (4), II, 188 pp. Folio. (420 x 280 mm). Contemp. mottled calf over six raised bands. Covers framed with triple gilt fillets, edges gilt. Marbled endpapers (some bumping to corners, spine ends partly restored). – Paris, Charles-Antoine Jombert for Desaint & Saillant and Durand, 1755–1759.

The great Paris edition of La Fontaine’s fables in a copy on “papier moyen de Hollande” and with the plate of “Le Singe et le Léopard” (vol. III, p. 113) in the first state without lettering “Le Léopard” on the banner. One of the most ambitious and successful works of French 18th-century book illustration. Copy from the estate of Alfred Reinhart from Winterthur/Switzerland with his engr. ex-libris in the first volume. It was Jean Baptiste Oudry (1685–1755) who, between 1729 and 1734, created drawings inspired from La Fontaine’s fables as patterns for Gobelin tapestry. After the financier Montenault had bought these sketches, he commissioned Charles-Nicolas Cochin the younger (1715–1790) to redraw Oudry’s free drawings for the present edition. Cochin supplied them with precise lines for the engravers. In 1755, when the first volume was finished, financial support by wealthy friends and even by King Louis XV allowed de Montenault to accomplish the work within four years. – Bodemann 135.1; Fabula docet 51; Cohen/de Ricci 548–550; Lewine 274; Tchemerzine III, 874f.; Sander 1065. – Paper defect towards inner margin of first quires (“Vie de La Fontaine”) of vol. I. The printed leaves in all volumes somewhat browned and with occasional foxing or spotting. Plates mostly clean, few of them marginally foxed. – Best.-Nr. 6872