500 engravings from the late 17th century made by Louis XIV’s chief engraver which include celebrated depictions of the fountains of ‘le labryrinthe de Versailles’, costume at the court of the Sun King and the Fauxbourgs of Paris.
Three large quarto volumes (21x26cm) bound in worn calf; marbled endpapers with the bookplate of ‘Abercairny’ (Scottish ancestral seat of the Stirling Home Drummond Moray family) to each front pastedown, masking an earlier family bookplate that is present in Vol III. The engravings are mostly from the second half of the 17th century, sometimes removed from books, sometimes issued separately and collected together and mounted to the blank pages of these books more than a century later. Their French compiler has provided a manuscript title page dated to 1812 in Paris to each of the three volumes which sets out the scope of the collection. The third is the most miscellaneous in nature although a terminal manuscript list of the plates provides a guide. The first two volumes include two sets of Le Clerc’s engravings after Le Brun’s work on the Passions, illustrations to Aesop’s Fables and fine depictions of the Fountains of Versailles, the Ottoman Empire and 21 of his Parisian scenes, ‘Veus de plusieurs petits endrois de Faubourgs de Paris’. There is frequent annotation, often when duplicate images are included, explaining and elucidating their different states. The compiler seems likely to have had access to Jombert’s Catalogue Raisonne of 1774 but the structure of that work is not duplicated here. Sebastien Le Clerc (1637-1714) worked mostly in Paris as an etcher and engraver, becoming ‘graveur du Roi’ working for the royal house of Louis XIV and is regarded as a major figure in French art. His work has long been pursued by print collectors. The contents appear as follows:
TOME I
Divers Desseins Dedies a Monsieur Colbert D’Ormy (31)
Figures de la Passion... Presentees a Madame la Marquise de Maintenon, 1692 (37)
Desseins de Figures... A Monsieur de Boucouer, (20)
Fables D’Aesope (23)
Messe de le Clerc (32)
Divers Costumes Francais Du Regne Louix XIV (18)
De La Labyrinthe de Versailles (12)
Histoire de L’Etat de L’Empire Ottoman, 1670 (20)
Medailles... Louis le Grand (105)
Quatre Petites Muses (5)
TOME II
Livre de Paysages... Mr le Marquis de Beringhen (21) including commentary comparing differences in states of engravingS
A Monsieur le Duc de Bourgogne; two versions of title (72)
Veus de plusieurs petits endrois de Faubourgs de Paris (21)
Courtanvaux (38)
Pieces de Paysages (18)
Caracteres des Passion, after Le Brun, 1696 (20)
Figures d’Academie Pour aprendre a desiner, 1673 (32)
Epreuves de Caracters des Passions (1696) 20
Petits Principes a Dessiner d’Apres le Clerc (47)
Principes de Dessein (47)
Histoire du Cardinal Ximenes/ Histoire Sacre c60
c200 ‘Plusieurs Pieces’ with terminal index.
