VENDU
. 8vo (206 x125 mm). [Bound with :] IDEM. Cendrillon, opéra-féerie en trois actes et en prose, musique de M. Nicolo Isouard. Paris, Pougens, 1810. Engraved frontispiece, 77 pp. [And :] IDEM. Les deux gendres, comédie en cinq actes et en vers. Paris, Le Normant, 1811. 110 pp. Total of 3 works in one volume. Contemporary crimsom leather spine over paper boards, heavily varnished, the covers decorated with scratched gold-leaf and painted in gold and silver to a classical design, framed borders containing vases, floral garlands, flowers, musical instruments, masques and putti, grape ornament at the corners, full-length figure of the muse Terpsichore in the large central panel (with lyre on front cover, signed by Françoise Callier, née Fixon, with garland on back cover), flat spine in compartments with three morocco lettering-pieces (night-bue for the first two titles, citron for the third) and gold and silver emblems relating to the three plays (including Cinderella’s slippers), decorated board-edges and turn-ins, , pale blue silk liners, gold-tooled floral border around the doublures, gilt edges, circular blind-stamped certificate “Brevet d’invention” on front-flyleaf.
1 in stock
A very important and in immaculate condition binding decorated in the so-called Odourless Varnished technique also known as ‘Vernis Martin” or “Reliures en Vernis sans Odeur”.
The lustrous finish was obtained by the application of dozen of layers of lacquer and by carefully rubbing the binding down between each coat of varnish.
This binding is particularly interesting as it is signed by the woman artist, Françoise Callier née Fixon. She was probably a member of the famous family of sculptors and painters active in Paris at the end of the eighteenth century.
Two other Martin varnish bindings bearing the signature of Françoise Callier are known to exist: one in the Morgan Library (Ehrman B-13), the other in the Getty Collection (The Wormsley Library, Maggs, PML, 1999, no. 72), which was listed in Martin Breslauer catalogue 103, no. 139.
Even when not signed, Vernis Martin bindings are of the greatest rarity: just over two dozens examples have so far been recorded.
Albert’ Ehrman’s census (the Book collector, Winter 1965, pp. 523-529) listed two examples of type A, apparently executed in the technique invented by the brothers Martin in 1730 (their patent renewed in 1744) for furniture and objects and 18 of type B as reinvented and patented by Théodore-Pierre Bertin in 1811, specifically for book bindings. Our binding is n°4 in Ehrman’s list. Several examples can now be added to his census: Paris, Arsenal Library, Brussels, Royal Library (from the Solvay collection, see Georges Colin in the Book collector, Autumn 1969); M. Breslauer cat. 103, n°139, coloured illustration 21 now in The Wormsley Library, n°72.
Our binding is with no doubt one of the finest and best preserved examples of this rare technique. The irreproachable state of conservation, a rarity due to the fragility of the varnish, makes this volume absolutely unique.
Provenance: Cortland F. Bishop, his sale New York 7th December 1948, lot 111; Cornelius Hauck, his sale, lot 618, with their bookplate.
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