Histoire de la vie de Jesus-Christ

First edition of this revised and illustrated version of François de Ligny’s Histoire de la vie de Jésus-Christ, published in Paris in 1804 under the supervision of the Abbé de Sambucy. The work is illustrated with 75 plates - 40 in volume I, including the frontispiece, and 35 in volume II, likewise including the frontispiece - engraved under the direction of L. Petit after paintings from the Italian, French and Flemish schools, together with a folding map of Palestine. Entirely printed on laid paper watermarked “Vie de J.C.”

Brunet described the work as a “belle édition de cet ouvrage estimé”, illustrated with 75 engravings after the principal schools of painting, and noted that the first issue of the plates was particularly sought after.

Sumptuous slightly later bindings, circa 1825, in full dark blue straight-grain morocco, attributable to Thouvenin from the large tool used on the upper boards. Smooth spines richly decorated with gilt ornaments arranged within two large compartments, each centred with a small cross and framed in blind; gilt rolls at head and foot. Boards with a large central blind-stamped tool, surrounded by a first gilt border composed of various tools and a second blind border of palmettes. Gilt rolls to headcaps, tools and rolls to board edges, richly gilt turn-ins, all edges gilt. Titles and volume numbers gilt. Very slight fading to the spine and joints of volume II; otherwise in remarkably fine condition.

The bindings are unsigned, but their attribution to Thouvenin rests on comparison of the large central tool with a design recorded under his name. With their straight-grain morocco, broad blind-stamped compositions and palmette ornament, they belong fully to the decorative vocabulary of the French Restoration.

François de Ligny had published an earlier version of his Histoire de la vie de Jésus-Christ as early as 1774. Fifteen years after his death, the Abbé de Sambucy revised and enlarged the text, giving it in 1804 a far more ambitious presentation. The Gospel narrative is now accompanied by an extensive cycle of images after the great masters: the life of Christ is seen through Raphael, Rubens, Poussin, Veronese, Titian, Le Sueur and Van Dyck, translated into engraving under the direction of L. Petit.

Some twenty years later, the copy itself was given a new dress. The ambitious illustrated edition of 1804 was thus matched by a Restoration binding conceived as a decorative work in its own right, its morocco, blind tooling and gilt ornament naturally extending the luxurious character of the book.