Nouvelle collection de costumes suisses

First edition of the Nouvelle collection, known as the “König pointillé”. It is illustrated with twenty-four plates etched in the stipple manner, hand-coloured in watercolour and protected by tissue guards. 

Bradel binding in red half-cloth with small corners, boards covered with red speckled paper with a moiré effect, stone marbled pastedowns, all edges gilt. Some light rubbing and minor soiling to the binding, light foxing to the leaves.

Provenance: illustrated bookplate of Alexandre Hoquet on the front pastedown; ownership inscription on the first free endpaper: "J. Niederhäusern-Koechlin à Mulhouse 1873".

In 1804, Franz Niklaus König had published in Unterseen and Bern a Collection de costumes suisses tirés du cabinet de Mr. Meyer d’Aarau, comprising twenty-four plates engraved after paintings by Joseph Reinhard. In the foreword to this Nouvelle collection, he explains that the changes which had occurred in Swiss costume obliged him to withdraw his earlier collection and to replace it with a new one, entirely drawn and engraved by himself.