VENDU
Oblong 4to oblong (265 x 345 mm) 47 pp., title within sporting border and 22 lithographed plates colored and heightened with gum-arabic. Original publisher’s green half-morocco, covers in green pebble buckram decorated in blind, upper cover with gilt title, spine git with raised bands, endpapers in white moiré paper, modern green cloth box (some wear to hinges and to head and tail of spine).
1 in stock
Thiébaud, col. 477; Souhart, 226 (indicates 1868 as year of publication); Frank, I, 324; Bobins II, 530; Schwerdt I, 219; Bulletin des Chasseurs Bibliophiles, 49, July-August, 1920, no. 207 (title and 3 plates only).
First edition. Rare copy of the deluxe issue with the plates finely coloured and gummed at the time.
The copy is complete with the 22 plates and the title lithographed by Roche. The text was printed by Maurice Loignon in Clichy.
Curiously, the work begins with a short historical overview of the usefulness of hunting and how it is presented today. “Hunting is the pursuit and destruction of all species of wild animals… Hunting is a natural right, like fishing, grazing and gathering… However, this natural right subsequently became a special right, a property right… The right to hunt is an exclusive right belonging to a few… However, [17]89 changed this state of affairs… Hunting has become the property of all, and the masters of the soil now rent out their hunting’ (introduction).
The book is divided into several chapters, starting with weapons, ammunition and equipment, followed by details of specific hunts (deer, roe deer, wild boar, wolves, hares, rabbits, pheasants, capercaillie, partridges, rails, quails, pigeons, ducks, woodcock, snipe, moorhens, plovers, swans, herons, small birds, game birds and game birds). The end of the book is devoted to hunting dogs and the Hunter’s Code “fait au palais de Tuileries le 3 mai 1844, Louis-Philippe”.
Thiébaud indicates that one “rencontre quelquefois cet album avec seulement le frontispice et 3 planches” (see also the copy in Bulletin des Chasseurs Bibliophiles).
The 22 plates depict various hunting scenes, each with a printed caption:
1) Le noviciat.
2) Le départ du garde-chasse.
3) Chasse au cerf.
4) Chasse aux sangliers.
5) Chasse aux loups.
6) Le lièvre manqué.
7) Chasse aux lapins.
8) Chasse aux faisans.
9) Chasse aux perdrix.
10) Chasse à la caille.
11) Chasse aux canards.
12) Chasse à la bécasse,
13) Le terrain glissant.
14) Chasse aux pluviers.
15) Le braconnier.
16) Le lièvre volé.
17) L’affût.
18) Le chasseur en jouissance
19) Première chasse d’un amateur
20) Le garde de vignes.
21) Le port d’armes.
22) L’arrêt.
Some occasional foxing, else a very good and complete copy of the rare deluxe issue.
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