La Fontaine, fables, Les deux coqs. Eau forte originale sur papier Vergé

Original etching before lettering heightened with aquatint and signed in the plate.
Executed on laid paper at the request of publisher A. QUANTIN to illustrate La Fontaine's fable: "Les deux coqs".
Very fine condition, presented in a modern black mount and protected by tissue guard.
Auguste Delierre (1829-1891) is referenced in the Bénézit dictionary of painters, sculptors, draughtsmen and engravers as: "history painter, genre scenes, animated landscapes, still lifes, illustrator. Student of Eugène Ciceri, he participated in the Paris Salon between 1852 and 1889. His compositions of landscapes animated with hunting dogs show the influence of works by Desportes and Oudry which he copied for a long time. He also shows a predilection for still lifes. He also illustrated the Fables of La Fontaine." Alain-Marie Bassy in his book "Les Fables de La Fontaine, quatre siècles d'illustration" analyzes his style for the representation of fables: "If he seeks the same angle of view on the animal as Gustave Doré, he avoids all sense of terror. The bird wounded by an arrow is no longer a large migratory bird but the deliciously colored quail of still lifes. [...] Before [the animals among which we live], Delierre's eye is as cold as that of an entomologist. The art of the fable becomes in his work the finest example of pictorial naturalism." A deluxe edition in two volumes: Fables de La Fontaine. Edition illustrée de 75 planches à l'eau-forte par A. Delierre, Paris, Quantin, 1883, is catalogued at the Bibliothèque Nationale. The etchings of the fables are before lettering and enclosed in pretty Louis XVI frames.