LA FONTAINE (Jean de) - [OUDRY (Jean Baptiste) - Lot 508

LA FONTAINE (Jean de) - [OUDRY (Jean Baptiste) Fables Choisies, mises en vers. Illustrations by OUDRY. Paris, Desaint & Saillant ; Durand, 1755-59. 4 volumes in folio: XXX (including frontispiece), XVIII (portrait of Oudry), 124pp (70 plates + one free plate on blue paper "La femme noyée", fable LVIII)/ 2f, II, 135pp. (68 plates + one free plate on blue paper "Le jardin et son seigneur", fable LXIV) / 2f., IV, 146pp. (67 plates + one free plate "Un animal dans la lune", fable CXLII) / 2f., II, 188pp. (68 plates). A total of 275 plates (including a frontispiece and a portrait of the illustrator) by Oudry, engraved by the best engravers of the time, and 203 beautiful woodcuts with floral or allegorical motifs after Bachelier, engraved by Lesueur and Papillon. Good condition inside, with a few small scattered spots. Contemporary porphyry calf, spine ribbed and decorated, one headband stretched, one footband with small leather loss, red title and tailpieces, jaws split at the entrances, triple gilt fillet framing the boards, double gilt fillet on the edges, wear rubs, inner gilt roulette, gilt edges. The painter's masterpiece, this illustration is distinguished as much by the expression of the characters and animals as by the beauty of the sites and the variety of the decorations. Jean-Baptiste Oudry worked on this illustration of the Fables between 1729 and 1734. He was particularly renowned for his animal paintings, most of them based on animals from the menagerie at Versailles. The finest 18th-century illustrated edition of La Fontaine, here in second printing (the banner is found with the words "Le Léopard" in the figure of the fable "Le Singe et le Léopard" (Tome III, pp. 113)). The brilliance with which Cochin adapted Oudry's drawings makes this one of the most remarkable illustrated books of the 18th century. Chief- The typography was entrusted to Charles-Antoine Jombert (Tchemerzine III, 874-875).