CURIOSA. François Marie Arouet, known as... - Lot 283 - Marie-Saint Germain

Lot 283
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CURIOSA. François Marie Arouet, known as... - Lot 283 - Marie-Saint Germain
CURIOSA. François Marie Arouet, known as VOLTAIRE - Achille DEVÉRIA. La Pucelle. Poem, followed by tales and satires of Voltaire. S.l. [Kehl] : From the printing house Didot le jeune, the third year [1795]. 2 volumes in one large in-4, 211 and 212 pages, fawn calf, gilt and cold decoration on the boards, spine gilt, gilt edge, gilt roulette on the inner boards, traces (Lesné père). 24 original free lithographs, 22 x 16 cm, in black. They bear the signature "London" in stone and can be attributed without question to the famous lithographer Achille Devéria. It is usually decorated with 21 engraved figures, not free, by Moreau le Jeune, replaced here by the very rare suite of 24 very free lithographs by Devéria. As Françoise Bléchet writes in Éros invaincu: "This magnificent volume illustrates enough the powerful attraction that Voltaire's mythical text has had on all bibliophiles since its publication." These lithographs of very large format, unique in their kind, are of an extraordinary quality and place Devéria among the best illustrators of La Pucelle. Lehec indicates that these superb plates were executed around 1840 and that the word London was written "to recall the English suite of [Pierre Clément] Marillier (1740-1808), which the artist imitated somewhat." Lesné was a Parisian bookbinder who practiced from 1809 to 1841 (Flety, page 112). Bibliography: Cohen de Ricci, 1033; Galitzin Supplément iconographique, 167; Gay-Lemonnyer III, page 889; Éros invaincu, 34; Bibliothèque Érotique Gérard Nordmann - 2e partie, 562. Provenance: Handwritten bookplate of Paul Adam (1862-1920).
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