Les Contes Rémois par M. Le Cte de C. Dessins de E. Meissonier. Troisième édition.
Paris: Michel Lévt Frères, 1858. The present work was published in three formats—twelvemo, octavo on Holland paper with the vignettes on China paper mounted, and octavo on vellum paper with the vignettes printed in the text. The present copy is in the last format, as was the Gordon Ray copy. Steel-engraved frontispiece, wood-engraved title-page vignette, additional steel-engraved portrait, and forty-one wood-engraved head-pieces, thirty-four after Meisonnier and seven after Foulquier. A little foxing to preliminaries, but still a fine copy in a lovely binding. In morocco-tipped slipcase. Original wrappers bound in. Full red straight-grained morocco by Durvand. Gilt triple-rule borders on covers, spines gilt-tooled in compartments, gilt inner dentelles. All edges gilt. Octavo. [4], 239 pp. Item #14077
“Meissonier is now remembered as a master of genre and military painting, but he was also a leading Romantic illustrator…the book that comes to mind is Les contes rémois. Chevigné’s little stories in verse set in an earlier period are mild imitations of La Fontaine’s Contes et nouvelles which feature for the most part the tribulations of old husbands and amorous priests. They would hardly be remembered today if it were not for Meissonier’s delicate and precise vignettes. He had a style which made everything he touched interesting” (Ray, The Art of the French Illustrated Book, 256).
Carteret III, 156 ff. (“ne des plus belles productions romantiques”). Gay-Lemonnyer I, 715.
Price: $1,250.00