[Rarebooks] fa: OEUVRES DE GESNER (GESSNER) 1793 - Fine Plates & Bindings - G.D. HOBSON'S COPY

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, January 24. More details and images can be found at the URL below or by searching for the seller name arch_in_la.

http://tinyurl.com/zfdut66

Thanks again,
Ardwight Chamberlain

[Salomon Gessner:] Oeuvres de Gesner. Paris: chez Dufart Imprimeur Libraire, [1793]. First edition thus. Two volumes, 8vo (23.25 cm), in full red morocco, spines and front and rear covers tooled in gilt, all page edges gilt; xvi, [17]-367, [1] pp.; 446, [1] pp.; 2 engraved title-pages and 25 engraved plates (complete). Cohen-De Ricci 434, 1101.

The plates, designed by Monnet and engraved by Dupreel, Giraud jeune and others, are accurately described by Cohen as "assez jolies." A penciled note by a previous owner states: "figures avant la lettre." The superb, unusual bindings are unsigned as far as we can tell, but testifying to their quality is the presence on the front paste-downs of the large engraved bookplates of Geoffrey D. Hobson (1882-1949), the renowned historian of European bookbinding who "pioneered the study of bindings as a branch of humanist culture" (The Telegraph, UK), authoring such important works as English Bindings Before 1500; English Bindings 1490-1940 in the Library of J. R. Abbey; Maioli, Canevari and Others; "Parisian Binding 1500-1525"; etc.

Bindings with very light wear and rubbing, spines a trifle sunned; the frontispiece cameo of Gessner is bound after the title-page; modest toning to the text with occasional mostly light spotting; the plates generally very clean, bright and crisp. With an early owner's small monogram shelving labels ("A.W."), light armorial ownership stamps on the title-pages, and the later engraved bookplates of Ross Ambler Curran, early twentieth-century West Coast society figure and bibliophile. A handsome set.