Histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut

L'Histoire du Chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut, by the Abbé Prévost. First edition with these illustrations, comprising 15 watercolours by René Lelong, engraved on copper in wash and stipple by Jean-Antonin Delzers in the manner of the 18th century, and printed in colour by register.

One of 100 deluxe copies on blue-tinted Arches vellum, no. 122, for which the justification calls for an additional suite printed in a single colour; this suite is not present in the present copy.

Copy bearing the crowned cipher of Her Royal Highness Henriette of Belgium (1870-1948), Duchesse de Vendôme, gilt at the foot of the spine.

Full dark blue morocco with doublures, signed Gonin, inlaid with two red morocco fillets. Smooth spine lettered with author and title and bearing the Duchesse de Vendôme’s crowned cipher, with two red morocco bands. Doublures composed of a dark blue morocco frame with gilt fillets and a large central panel of cobalt-blue morocco. First free endpaper of silk embroidered in gilt thread, followed by blue-and-gold paper endleaves. Untrimmed, with full margins, the original blue wrappers imitating morocco preserved. A few very pale spots to the white endleaves and occasional light spotting elsewhere.

The provenance gives this copy a particular coherence. Sister of King Albert I of Belgium, Henriette de Vendôme was herself a watercolourist; the year after the publication of this Manon Lescaut, Gonin issued her own book, Fleurs des Alpes cueillies dans mes excursions, illustrated after her watercolours.

Thus bound for Henriette de Vendôme, this Manon Lescaut acquires a particularly fitting character: Lelong’s watercolours are answered by the personal taste of its owner and the craftsmanship of Gonin, in a copy whose provenance naturally extends the very spirit of the illustrations.