Le Temple Des Muses. orne de LX. Tableaux Ou sont representes les Evenemens les plus remarquables de l'Antiquite fabuleuse... et accompagnes d'explications et de remarques, Qui decouvrent le vrai sens des Fables, & le fondement qu'elles ont dans l'Histoire. Text by Michel de Marolles, with remarks by La Barre de Beaumarchais. [10], 152, [4] pp. Illustrated with additional engraved title-page and 60 full page engraved plates. Folio, 450 x 290 mm, bound by Gosselin [Jean-Baptiste?], in late eighteenth century red morocco stamped with neoclassical motifs, blue silk bookmark. Amsterdam: Zacharie Chatelain, 1733.
First Edition. A luxuriously bound copy of this well-known illustrated mythology with a distinguished provenance. According to Cohen, the illustrations are adapted from those executed for the Temple of the Muses by Abraham Van Diepenbecke in 1655. It is illustrated with a title vignette, a fleuron with the arms of Prince Philippe Charles, Archbishop of Mainz, dedicatee of the work and 60 full page engraved plates with added accomplished borders designed by Bernard Picart (1655 illustrations do not have any borders). The work was reprinted in 1742 and 1749, yet the 1733 edition is of the highest quality.
A binder’s ticket is pasted on the verso of the first blank reads; ‘Relié par Gosselin, rue Saint-Jacques, No. 41 A Paris’ (the house number corrected in manuscript). This is likely the little known Jean Baptiste Gosselin who was active in Paris at the end of the eighteenth century. He was clearly quite talented with his career likely undermined by the French Revolution.
Minimal wear to the binding, a few stray spots and toning internally. Overall a desirable, fine copy with wide margins.
PROVENANCE: From the library of Hans Fürstenberg with his ex-libris. Federico Lobetti Bodoni with his ex-libris. Both pasted on the verso of the front past-down.
Cohen 532. Cohen de- Ricci 531. Brunet V, 696.
