DORAT (Claude-Joseph). - Lot 40

DORAT (Claude-Joseph). Les Baisers, précédés du Mois de mai, poëme. La Haye, Paris : Lambert, Delalain, 1770. - 2 parts in one volume in-8, 234 x 143: frontispiece, 119 pp. 1 plate; 47 pp. Plum morocco, wide gilt lace on covers, ornate ribbed spine, lemon morocco lining decorated with rich floral repetition, plum silk endpapers, slipcase (S. David - Renard). Cohen, 308-311. First edition of this famous collection of 20 poems by poet and playwright Claude-Joseph Dorat (1734-1780), preceded by the long poem Le Mois de mai, inspired by Jean Second's collection Basia, published in Lyon in 1539. This edition is, according to Cohen, one of the masterpieces of the 18th century. It is illustrated "with perfect taste and grace" (Cohen), and includes a frontispiece, title vignette, plate, 22 chapter headings and 22 culs-de-lampe, all engraved by Aliamet, Baquoy, Binet, Delaunay, Lingée, de Longueil, Masquelier, Massard, Née and Ponce, after drawings by Charles EISEN (1720-1778) and Clément-Pierre MARILLIER (1740-1808). One of the large paper copies, with titles in red and black. It contains pagination errors that Cohen interprets as signs of a first printing. However, this statement needs to be qualified. In fact, pages 29-30 (paginated 5-6) and 35-36 (numbered 11-12) are actually cartons. Their pagination corresponds to that of the book without the Réflexions préliminaires, which suggests that the work was composed without any provision for the insertion of this preliminary text. During the printing process, the poet had these two leaves reprinted to make, no doubt, a minor alteration, providing the corrected text on a proof showing the original pagination. The printer has religiously reproduced the numbers 5-6 and 11-12, and this error escaped the author's vigilance. The copy is also complete with the 47-page supplement entitled Imitations de poëtes latins, which appeared after Les Baisers and is not always found enclosed. Superb copy in lined binding by Salvador David, son of Bernard David whom he succeeded in 1890. He died in 1929. The gilding is by a certain Renard. This luxurious binding was produced for the German banker Jean Furstenberg (1890-1982), best known as a bibliophile, who had amassed one of the most important private collections of precious books and bindings. A perfectly preserved copy, despite some foxing on the frontispiece and very light wetness on the top leaf of the plate opposite page 27. Pagination errors have been corrected in ink. Provenance: Jean Furstenberg, with bookplate. - Otto Schäfer (Sotheby's sale, December 7, 1995, no. 174).