HOLBEIN Hans Icones historiarum Veteris Testamenti, ad vivum expressæ, extremáque diligentia emendatiores factæ.

USTC 47522; Baudrier, V, 209 ; Brunet, III, 252-253; Mortimer, French, 282; Fairfax Murray, French, I, n° 244; Adams, B-1963; Gültlingen, Bibliographie des livres imprimés à Lyon au seizième siècle, VIII, p. 27, n° 7; Picot, Rothschild, 16; Brun, p. 131; Martine Delaveau & Denise Hillard, Bibles imprimées du XVe au XVIIIe siècle conservées à Paris, 1259; Engammare, “Les figures de la Bible. Le destin oublié d’un genre littéraire en image (XVIe-XVIIe s.)”, in Mélanges de l’École française de Rome. Italie et Méditerranée, t. 106, n° 2, 1994, p. 549-591; Jeudwine, Art and Style in Printed Books, I, pp. 168 & 216.

First edition of 1547, according to Mortimer’s criteria, recognisable by the caesura in the title and the French text ending the first line of folio L1r with ‘vices’. One of the finest illustrated books of the 16th century.

The edition is illustrated with 94 woodcuts attributed to Hans Lützelberger, ‘the prince of engravers’ (Passavant) after Hans Holbein the younger (1497-1543) – 2 of which appear in this edition for the first time, and 4 portraits of the evangelists woodcut by another hand on the verso of folio N3 which also appear here for the first time.

These illustrations from the Old Testament were drawn by Hans Holbein, as can be seen from one of the introductory verses to the work, signed Nicolas Bourbon, de Vandœuvres: ‘Hoc opus Holbinae nobile cerne manus’ (I have seen this work by the noble hands of Holbein, folio A2v). The cutting of the blocks is attributed to Hans Lützelburger. The figures were first published in 1538 and again in 1539 in the Historiarum Veteris Instrumenti Icones. 

The first edition (1538), printed in Lyon by Melchior and Gaspar Treschel, included ninety-two woodcuts. In 1547, the Frellon brothers undertook a new edition. François signed the notice to the reader and his brother Jean II (1517-1568), who had apprenticed as a bookseller in Basel before moving to Lyon in 1536, added the ninety-four quatrains and the eightain in French by Gilles Corrozet to the images in the 1539 edition.

Fine provenance of a bibliophile lady, this copy having belonged to the Marquise de Pompadour and bound with her coat of arms.

Slight restorations to the hinges. The date on the title and colophon has been retouched.

Provenance: Marquise de Pompadour (1721-1764; hear coat of arms on the binding; Catalogue, Paris, 1765, no. 14, with dating error for the work later corrected) – Charles Fairfax Murray (1849-1919; Early French Books, no. 244). Fairfax Murray probably added a line above the dates on the title page and colophon. The line on the title page belongs to R. Mortimer to the second edition of 1547, which Fairfax Murray believed to be a feature of the first.