Monumens inédits d’antiquité figurée, Grecque, Étrusque et Romaine. Première partie. Cycle héroïque [all published]
sold
- Subjects
- Archaeology, Greek & Roman
- Sculpture, Greco-Roman
- Vase-painting, Greek
- Authors/Creators
- Raoul-Rochette, Désiré, 1789-1854
- Artists/Illustrators
- Saint-Ange-Desmaisons, Louis, 1780-after 1831
- Printers/Publishers
- Imprimerie Royale (Paris), 1828-1833
- Other names
- Durand, Edmé Antoine, 1768-1835
- Hope, Thomas, 1769-1831
- Pourtalès-Gorgier, James-Alexandre, Comte de, 1776-1855
Raoul-Rochette, Désiré
Saint-Amand-Montrond 1789 – 1854 Paris
Monumens inédits d’antiquité figurée, Grecque, Étrusque et Romaine. Première partie. Cy cle héroïque [all published].
Paris, ‘Imprimé par Autorisation du Roi, du 11 Décembre 1827, A l’Imprimerie Royale’, [1828–1833]
folio (513 × 335 mm), (221) ff. letterpress, signed π2 a4 1–144 151 (152, cancelled) 16–304 312 32–524 532 54–554 562 and paginated (4) i–viii 1–430, with lithographed insignia of the Imprimerie Royale on title, and fifteen numbered engraved vignettes printed with text (mainly head- and tail-pieces, one on p.48 a hand-coloured aquatint); plus ninety-three plates (numbered i–lxxx, xa, xb, xxvia, xxvib, xxixa, xxxia, xliia, xliva, xlivb, xlixa, lviia, lxviia, lxxiia, as called for in the list of plates on pp.429–430), of which three are engravings (i, xl, xli) and the remainder lithographs (five are coloured: pls. xviii, xxxia, xliv, xliva, lxiv). Five plates are folding (pls. xii, xx, xxxiv, xlv, lviii); plates vi and xxii are dated 1828. Plate xlix is present in one state only;1 pl. lxxiia is not identical to pl. lxxii.
Occasional spotting, otherwise a superb copy.
bound in contemporary russia leather, covers panelled in blind and gilt.
Only edition of an ambitious monograph on Greek mythology in art, divided into three sections, treating respectively Achilles, Odysseus, and Orestes, followed by an appendix, additions and corrections.
The work was the product of a voyage to Italy undertaken by the author in 1826–1827 for the purpose of discovering ‘unpublished’ antiquities in private and public collections. It was projected in twelve parts, of which the first two (Achilléide), describing depictions of the Marriage of Peleus and Thetis and of Achilles himself, appeared in 1828.2 The third and fourth parts (Orestéide) were issued in 1830;3 parts five and six (Odysséide) followed in 1833.4 Publication was then suspended, probably owing to insufficient subscriptions, or else because of severe and damaging reviews published by Jean-Antoine Letronne, the greatest name in France as a Greek scholar.5
Many well-known antiquities are discussed, often controversially, such as the Ludovisi Mars, the Mattei bas-relief of Thetis and Peleus, and the Barberini (Portland) vase. The author’s desire to present ‘unpublished’ objects is realised through the reproduction of a large number of vases in the collections of Edmé-Antoine Durand, the Comte de Pourtalès-Gorgier, and Thomas Hope.6 Many of these vases can be traced to permanent collections, in Brussels,7 Cambridge,8 London,9 Naples,10 New York,11 and Paris.12
The plates are signed by L. Dupré, Granger, and Vauthier, as draughtsmen; by Saint-Ange as engraver (pls. i, xl); and by Villain, Engelmann, Raban, Muret, Thierry Frères, Th. Delarue, and Lemercier, as lithographers.
Our copy is finely bound in russia leather decorated in gilt by a broad roll of the type employed by the Mannheim bookbinder Franz Sebastian Voll (1783–1846). Born in Würzburg, Voll was admitted to the guild of binders in Mannheim in 1807.13 His clients included the princely house of Fürstenberg,14 Grand-Duchess Stephanie von Baden,15 and perhaps Ernst August i, King of Hannover.16
references Michael Krieg, Mehr nicht erschienen: ein Verzeichnis unvollendet gebliebener Druckwerk (Bad Bocklet 1954–1958), i, p.145; Staatliche Museen Berlin, Kunstbibliothek, Katalog der Lipperheideschen Kostümbibliothek, compiled by Eva Nienholdt und Gretel Wagner-Neumann (Berlin 1965), Bc14; Laurentino Garcia y Garcia, Nova bibliotheca pompeiana (Rome 1998), p.1001 no.11,542
1. In the imperfect copy sold by Sotheby’s, ‘Greece and the Levant: A Private Library’, 13 November 2008, lot 168, this plate was present in two states, plain and coloured. The cataloguer states: ‘The 93 plates in this work are numbered 1–80, in addition to which there are plates 10 a & b, 26 a & b, 2 plates 29, 31 a, 42 a, 44 a & b, 49 a, 57 a and 67 a, all of which are called for in the plate list (pp.429–430). However this copy has plate 49 in two states (plain and coloured) which is not called for and lacks plate 72 a, which is called for (but which seems very similar in subject to plate 72). Plate 72 a never seems to have been included in this copy’. The Blackmer copy, sold by Sotheby’s, ‘The library of Henry Myron Blackmer ii’, London, 11–13 October 1989, lot 944, was also imperfect (lacking plate 2); the copy in the Royal Academy Library, London, lacks plate 5.
2. The prospectus was reprinted in Journal des savans, April 1828, pp.252–253: ‘…L’ouvrage paroîtra en douze livraisons, qui se succéderont avec toute la célérité que pourra comporter l’exécution même d’un livre de cette nature, qui exige tout le soin, toute la correction typographique possibles…. Le prix de chaque livraison est de 16 francs 70 centimes, et celui de l’ouvrage entier, de 200 francs. II sera tiré dix exemplaires avec épreuves sur papier de Chine, dont le prix sera double. La première livraison paroîtra dans le courant de juin prochain.’ (link). The first two livraisons were announced in the Bibliographie de la France ou journal général de l’Imprimerie et de la Librairie, no. 52, 27 December 1828, p.930 no. 7554 (‘Première et deuxième livraisons. Un seul cahier in-folio de 29 feuilles, plus 25 planches dont 2 doubles… L’ouvrage formera deux volumes et sera distribué en douze livraisons’). Goethe received the two livraisons from the author in Paris on 21 December 1828; see Hans Ruppert, Goethes Bibliothek: Katalog (Weimar 1958), p.305 no. 2114, and Christian Schuchardt, Goethe’s Kunstsammlungen (Jena 1848), i, p.222 no. 80.
3. Bibliographie de la France, no. 7, 13 February 1830, p.104 no. 871 (‘Un seul cahier in-folio de 5l feuilles, plus 29 planches’).
4. Bibliographie de la France, no. 38, 21 September 1833, p.592 no. 5094 (‘Un seul cahier in-folio de 62 feuilles, plus 36 planches’).
5. Journal des savans, May 1829, pp.282–296; ibid., September 1829, pp.529–539. A favourable review of the fifth-sixth livraisons by Karl Benedikt Hase was published in October 1834 (ibid., pp.597–606).
6. Cf. E.M.W. Tillyard, The Hope Vases: a catalogue (Cambridge 1923), nos. 32, 114, 267.
7. Musées Royaux, Brussels. Plate 44 b (Athenian red-figured stamnos): a131.
8. Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. Plate xviii/2: gr2.1955 (ex-Hope collection; Tillyard, op. cit., no. 32).
9. British Museum, London. Plate xxvi (Apulian red-figured volute-krater): f159 (1865,0103.21); pl. xl (red-figured kantharos): e155 (1865,0103.23); pl. xliv/1 (red-figured amphora): e296 (1836,0224.20); pl. xliv/2 (red-figured neck-amphora): e293 (1836,0224.19); pl. lvi (black-figured lekythos): b541 (1836,0224.134); pl. lx (red-figured volute-krater): e470 (1865,0103.22); pl. lxiv (red-figured amphora): f147 (1865,0103.28); pl. lxvi (red-figured volute-krater): f160 (1867,0508.1333); pl. lxviii/1 (black-figured neck-amphora): b279 (1836,0224.135); pl. lxxiii (red-figured calyx-krater): e466 (1867,0508.1133). Vignette p.155 (black glazed pottery guttus): g48 (1836,0224.396). Discussed p.85 (red-figured pelike): e377 (1865,0103.16); p.262 (red-figured neck-amphora): e289 (1867,0508.1056); p.428 (red-figured kylix): e81 (1867,0508.1066).
10. Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples. Plates xiii–xiv: H. 2889, cf. Heinrich Heydemann, Die Vasensammlungen des Museo Nazionale zu Neapel (Berlin 1872), pp.429–430; xvii: H. 2746, cf. Heydemann, op. cit., pp.380–381; pl. xxxi: H. 1761, cf. Heydemann, op. cit., pp. 84–85; pl. xxxiv: H. 2858, cf. Heydemann, op. cit., pp.410–411; pls. xxxvi–xxxvii: H. 1984, cf. Heydemann, op. cit., pp.155–156; pl. xli: H. 24; cf. Heydemann, op. cit., pp.636–637.
11. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Plate iii/1 (Athenian red-figured neck-amphora): 41.162.42.
12. Musée du Louvre, Paris. Plate x/2 (Athenian red-figured column-krater): g363; pl. lxxx (Athenian red-figured volute-krater): g482; Pl. lxviii/2 (Attic black-figure oinochoe): f118.
13. Friedrich Walter, ‘Ein Prachteinband des Mannheimer Buchbindermeisters Sebastian Voll’ in Mannheimer Geschichtsblätter 28 (1927), pp.241–244; Helmuth Helwig, Das deutsche Buchbinder-Handwerk. Handwerks- und Kulturgeschichte (Stuttgart 1962–1965), ii, p.50; Otto Mazal, Einbandkunde: die Geschichte des Bucheinbandes (Wiesbaden 1997), p.306.
14. Five bindings are mentioned by Erna Huber, ‘Einbandsammlung und Einbandkatalog der Fürstlich Fürstenbergischen Hofbibliothek Donaueschingen’ in Festschrift Ernst Kyriss: Dem Bucheinbandforscher Dr. Ernst Kyriss in Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt, zu seinem 80. Geburtstag am 2. Juni 1961 gewidmet (Stuttgart [1961]), p.444 and Abb. 9 (reproduction of the upper cover of William Gell’s Pompeiana: the topography, edifices, and ornaments of Pompeii, London 1817–1819).
15. A copy of Franz Heinrich Georg von Drais, Geschichte der Regierung und Bildung von Baden (Karlsruhe 1816–1818), bound in red leather and apparently presented by the Grand Duchess to Hortense de Beauharnais (Schloßmuseum, Mannheim), is cited by Friedrich Walter, ‘Einbände der Mannheimer Buchbinderzunft’ in Zeitschrift für Bücherfreunde 37 (1933), pp.85–86; a volume of Q. Horatii Flacci opera (London: John Pine, 1733–1737) bound by Voll in violet leather circa 1825 (Mannheim, collection Dr. Fritz Bassermann) is illustrated (fig. 6).
16. A copy of John Smith, Select views in Italy, with topographical and historical descriptions in English and French (London 1792–1796) bound by Voll for Ernst August i was in the Feltrinelli sale (Christie’s, ‘The Giannalisa Feltrinelli library’, London, 3 December 1997, lot 359).