Jean-Baptiste OUDRY

New edition of the Fables, more complete than previous ones, illustrated with a hand-coloured vignette on the title page and 110 hand-coloured half-page illustrations in the text, for a total of 111 engraved and coloured plates (cf. Rochambeau 305. Després, p. 142, no. 63).

Full olive calf binding, spine with gilt fillets, numerously tooled in gilt, gilt tooling to spine-ends, boards framed in gilt, marbled endpapers and pastedowns, inner gilt dentelle on pastedowns, all edges gilt, 20th-century binding.

Spine and covers faded, some foxing, a snag at head of rear cover. Lower right corners of pp. ix-xi restored.

An exceptional and finely watercoloured copy of

Fine edition with Oudry's 276 engravings, from the 1755-1759 edition. [...] it is little known and quite rare, much rarer than the Desaint and Saillant edition of 1755. (Rochambeau, 124)
Near-contemporary bindings (late 18th century) in half brown calf, smooth spines decorated with camel morocco title and volume labels, paste-paper boards, all edges red. Rubbing to boards.
Some leaves uniformly browned and light dampstains without any damage to the engravings.
Contemporary bibliographical label pasted to verso of first endpaper.
Fine edition of this great classic of French literature illustrated by the greatest animal painter, Jean-Baptiste Oudry.