1883 Rare Limited De La Fontaine set - Tales and Novels in Verse. Extra Color illustrated by Eisen.
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(Description)
Author: Jean de LA FONTAINE. (illustrator, Charles-Dominique-Joseph Eisen).
Title: Tales and Novels in Verse of J. De La Fontaine. Illustrated with the Eighty Fives Original Plates by EISEN. (Complete set of 2 volumes).
Publisher: Paris, J. Lemonnyer, 1883. First Limited Edition #97/100 printed on Japan paper.
Language: Text in English.
Size: 9 "X 6 ".
Pages: xiii-252, x-334 pages.
Binding: Attractive and near fine gilt-decorated half morocco leather binding with nice gilt fleur-de-lys on the spine (hinges fine - as shown) under a protective removable mylar cover. Upper edge gilt. A very nice binding!
Content: Very good content (bright, tight, and clean - as shown).
Illustrations: Complete with the 85 beautiful full-page line engravings illustrations and the 54 extra hand-colored plates by Eisen.
Estimate: (USD 1000 - USD 2000)
The books: Scarce limited extra color-illustrated edition of those De La Fontaine's lusty stories illustrated by Eisen in a very nice binding! "A lover of nature, of keen intelligence, power of observation and poetic genius", Jean de La Fontaine, best known for his popular animal fables enjoyed by generations of children, penned stories in a decidedly different vein with his Contes et Nouvelles en vers. "The first [of the tales] was published in 1664, the last posthumously. He borrowed them mostly from Italian sources, in particular Giovanni Boccaccio… The essence of nearly all his Contes lies in their licentiousness… The accent of La Fontaine the narrator enlivens the story with playfully capricious comments, explanations and digressions". "Eisen’s 85 designs for La Fontaine [first published in 1762] are the liveliest and most adroit that he ever drew. Thoroughly at home with the varied action of these lusty stories—their love passages, their intrigues, their practical jokes—he is also expert in choosing the moment in each that will best serve his purpose as an illustrator". This edition of Tales and Novels is a later English verse translation. With 85 beautiful illustrations by Eisen.
The author: Jean de La Fontaine (8 September 1621 – 13 April 1695) was a French fabulist and one of the most widely read French poets of the 17th century. He is known above all for his Fables, which provided a model for subsequent fabulists across Europe and numerous alternative versions in France, and in French regional languages.
The illustrator: Charles-Dominique-Joseph Eisen (17 August 1720 – 4 January 1778) was a French painter and engraver. The son and pupil of Frans Eisen, he was born at Valenciennes. In 1741 he went to Paris, and in the following year entered the studio of Le Bas. His talent and his sparkling wit gained him admission to the court, where he became painter and draftsman to the King, and drawing-master to Madame de Pompadour. He afterwards fell into disgrace, and in 1777 retired to Brussels, where he died in poverty in 1778. His pictures are not without merit, but it is as a designer of illustrations and vignettes for books that he is best known. The most remarkable of these are the designs for the Fermiers généraux edition of the Contes of La Fontaine, published at Amsterdam in 1762; Ovid's Metamorphoses, 1767–71; the Henriade of Voltaire, 1770; the Baisers of Dorat, 1770; and the Vies des Peintres hollandais et flamands of Descamps, published in 1751–63. He etched some few plates of the Virgin, a St. Jerome, St. Ely preaching, etc. There are pictures by him in the Museums of Bordeaux, Alençon, and Bourg.