Gohory, Livre de la Conqueste de la Toison d'or, Paris, 1563, Parisian morocco gilt presentation binding for the Cardinal de Lorraine
Session begins in
July 11, 09:30 AM GMT
Estimate
60,000 - 80,000 GBP
Lot Details
Description
GOHORY, JACQUES & LÉONARD THIRY. Livre de la Conqueste de la Toison d’or, par le Prince Iason de Tessalie: faict par figures avec exposition d’icelles. Paris: Jean de Mauregard, 1563
A BEAUTIFUL BINDING MADE FOR PRESENTATION TO CHARLES DE GUISE,ꦦ CARDINAL DE LORRAINE.
The plates illustrating the story of Jason and the Golden Fleece, with text (in French and Latin) by Jacques Gohory, was commissioned by Jean de Mauregard, a court official who dedicated the work to Charles IX and had copies beautifully bound for different recipients; surviving bindings were made for Henri, Duc de Guise (nephew of Charles), Nicolas Dangu and Vincenzo Lauro. Interestingly, the watermarks of the endleaves indicate that the pap🌜er stock for the binding and the printing was the same; Mauregard had obviously provided paper for both the printing and the binding, leaving no room for doubt that these were presentation bindings (Hobson & Culot, p.131).
The suite of plates was engraved byꦜ René Boyvin after drawings made by Léonard Thiry, an artist working at Fontainebleau and a talented student of Rosso Fiorentino, plausibly conceived as designs for tapestries. The captions, composed by 🐭Gohory, were engraved separately, so they could be printed in the relevant language.
Charles de Guise (1524-1574), made Cardinal de Lorraine by Paul III on 27 July 1547, was the uncle of Henri de Lorraine, 3rd Duc de Guise (1550-1588). For another copy of this French edition, bound for the teenaged Henri de Lorraine, see Bibliotheca Brookeriana, 9 July 2024, lot 533. The binding of a copy now in Brussels (KBR, VB 5.434 151 C RP) is decorated to a pattern very similar to the Cardinal de Lorraine’s copy, and features the same pair of cornucopia cornerpieces. The decoration in the centres is obliterated, however the outlines of the centrepiece on the lower cover appear to match the one on🍒 the Cardinal’s binding. For another copy of this work, with the text in Latin and in a contemporary French architectural binding for Nicolas Dangu, see Bibliotheca Brookeriana I, 11 October 2023, lot 43.
Oblong folio (285 x 370 mm). Roman and italic type. 4 letterpress leaves (title-page, dedication, and two leaves of text), 26 engraved plates in their second state, with number at head of ea෴ch plate. Woodcut initials. (Slight browning and spotting, small scattered wormholes to margins, damp stain to head of final letterpress leaf, several leaves with closed tears with neat tissue repairs to lower margin.)
binding: Contemporary Parisian binding (288 x 372 mm), havanna morocco, richly gilt, broad border filled with azured floral tools linked by tendrils of single gilt fillets and dots, large corner ornaments of cornucopia design, in centre of upper cover a cartouche surrounding a cardinal's hat on a gold-stippled ground over an inner cartouche with the painted arms of Cardinal Charles de Lorraine, in centre of lower cover the oval medallion with interlacing and azured moti𒉰fs, flat spine decorated with false bands and azured tools in compartments, traces of 1 paꦚir of ties, edges gilt. (Binding slightly rubbed and with some small stains, corners and spine ends defective, occasional very small wormholes to upper board, lacking ties.)
provenance: Charles de Guise, Cardinal de Lorraine (1524-1574), arms on binding—Pierre Delaplanche (1610-1684), inscription to upper endpaper, donated his library upon his death to—Oratoriens de Saint-Magloire (Paris) , dissolved in 1792—Richard Bull (1725-1805), by descent to—Alexander Henry Leith, 5th Lord Burgh (1866-1926), sale, Sotheby's, 28 June 1926, lot 243 (illustrated in catalogue), £10 to Bernard Quaritch—Marquis Hubert de Ganay (1922-1974), ex-libris, sold by his heirs, Christie's, Paris, 26 November 2019, lot 58. acquisition: Purchased at the preceding sale. references: USTC 5944; A. Hobson, French and Italian collectors and their bindings illustrated from examples in the library of J.R. Abbey (Oxford 1953), p. 45 (cited)
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