Sims Reed Ltd. AUTUMN - 2 0 2 0 - 1. CHARLES I. The Most Remarkable Transactions of the Reign of Charles I. London. Printed & Sold by Thos. & John Bowles Printsellers. 1727 / 1728. Oblong folio. (474 x 616 mm). [10 unnumbered leaves]. 10 large etchings with engraving on thick laid paper, each with title in English and French and parallel explanatory text by various engravers after various artists (see below), the first two etchings with publisher's details at head; sheet size: 468 x 608 mm. Contemporary straight-grained red morocco, front and rear boards with highly elaborate decorative tooled borders with larger tooled corner pieces to surround large central astral vignette com- posed of small astral tools, banded spine in 14 compartments with elaborate decorative tooling and gilt presentation, marbled endpapers, a.e.g. A remarkable complete set of excellent impressions of the rare series of plates illustrating the life of Charles I, here in a superlative decorative presentation binding of contemporary red morocco. This series, presented from a strongly sympathetic royalist perspective, depicts 10 tableaux from the life of Charles I, be- ginning with his marriage to Henrietta Maria of France in 1625 and concluding with his execution and, pace the title of the plate, his Apotheosis. Even if the images themselves did not stress the romantic tragedy, the engraved text beneath each - in English for a domestic and French for a continental audience - provides ample detail concerning the sufferings of the mis- understood, otherworldly and much put upon Royal Martyr. Bathos (pathos!) aside, the series in nevertheless a triumph of engraving, a superb example of pictorial biography and several of the plates are superlative masterpieces of invention. This copy is of particular note for the truly remarkable binding of contemporary red morocco. The very large binding with its elaborate tooling features a large central star vignette to each board and the gilt text - indicating a presentation - to the spine thus: EX / DO / NO / D[OMIN]Æ and in the following compartment: COM / I[TESS]Æ / A / BEN / TINC. The prints were engraved after the original paintings, commissioned around 1722, by a number of important contemporary English, English-based and French painters: Jean Raoux, Charles Parrocel, Peter Tillemans, Louis Chéron, Peter Angelis, John Vanderbank and Thomas Baston, perhaps - as per Timothy Clayton - ... providing an opportunity to measure the best artists in England against some of the best from France. The engravers used were Nicolas Gabriel Dupuis, Nicolas Tardieu, John Harris, Gerard van der Gucht or Vandergucht, Bernard Baron, Claude du Bosc and Bernard Lépicié. Please contact us for the full list of plates. The success of this venture [the publication of Van Der Meulen's 'Campaigns of Louis XIV'] encouraged Thomas Bowles to initiate an ambitious series of prints of the 'Most Remarkable Transactions of the Reign of Charles I' ... the subject-matter had considerable appeal for an English public still obsessed with the dramatic events of less than a hundred years ago. Tory loyalty to the Royal Martyr being particularly strong. These events were also central to the growing interest of foreigners in English political history. (Timothy Clayton). [see Timothy Clayton's 'The English Print 1688 - 1802', Yale, 1997, pp. 56 - 57]. SOLD 2. DEBUCOURT, Philippe-Louis. Modes et Manières du Jour à Paris à la fin du 18ème siècle et au Commencement du 19ème; Collection de 52 Gravures Coloriées. Paris. Au Bureau du Journal des Dames. 1798 - 1808. 8vo. (205 x 132 mm). Engraved title and 52 hand-coloured engravings by Philippe-Louis Debucourt, the first plate with the heading ‘Modes et Manières du Jour’, the second plate ‘Manières et Modes’, the remainder ‘Modes etc.’, the final two plates ‘Modes et Manières’. Later three quarter morocco over marbled boards. Philippe-Louis Debucourt’s rare chef-d’oeuvre of colour printing. Série très rare de 52 pièces dessinées et gravées à l’eau-forte par Debucourt. (Fenaille). From 1785 to 1800 Debucourt created 64 engraved works, all after his own paintings in oil, gouache and watercolour: they include several portraits, such as those of Louis XVI (1789) and Marie-Joseph, Marquis de La Fayette (1790), as well as sev- eral small patriotic scenes, such as Almanach National (1791). Most numerous were genre scenes; some, such as the Happy Family (1796), are in a tender vein, but most are on themes of gallantry, such as the Rose in Danger (1791). He experiment- ed widely with colour-printing techniques, including intaglio engraving, mezzotint, soft-ground etching and aquatint and in these, for the most part, the colour was printed using several plates. This many-sided production, the quality of which was uneven, became even more intensive after 1800; by the end of his life Debucourt had engraved 494 plates, chiefly reproduc- tions of other artists’ work. He made prints after the paintings of Carle Vernet, Louis-Leopold Boilly, Jean-Baptiste Isabey, Nicolas-Toussaint Charles and Martin Drolling. When engraving his own works, he exploited in particular his caricature style, as in The Visits (1800), and in the series presented here, the Modes et Manieres du Jour. Published over a period of eleven years, these 52 plates remain as Debucourt’s printed masterpiece, illustrating the excellence of the artist as printmak- er, combining as they do the decorative beauty of a fine fashion periodical, together with comic dramatisations of French high society: images of the secret lovers, or the unwanted suitor - each plate complete with amusing title. In his prime Louis-Philippe Debucourt (1755 - 1832) ranked as the supreme master of engravings printed in colour ... he per- fected his process of printing in colour with five successive coppers, which enabled him to achieve in his prints the delicacy, the suavity, and the freshness of painting itself. (Ray) C’est le plus intéressant et aussi le plus rare des recueils de modes si caractéristiques du commencement du XIX siècle. (Colas). [Fenaille 71 - 122; Colas 814; not in Lipperheide; see Ray 88]. £12,000 / €13,080 3. GRANDVILLE. (Delord, Taxile). Un Autre Monde: Transformations, visions, incarnations, ascensions, locomotions, explorations, peregrinations ... &c. Paris. H. Fournier, Libraire-Editeur. 1844. Large 8vo. (272 x 212 mm). pp. (ii), (i), (i), 295, (i). Half-title in red with pseudo-privilège verso (also in red), leaf with frontis- piece verso, printed title in red and printed text illustrated with 36 hors-texte wood-engraved plates all with additional colouring by hand and 146 wood-engravings in the text, final two leaves with 'Table', 'Explication' and 'Errata' verso. Original publisher's full green morocco, the front board with large central pictorial vignette reproducing the frontispiece beneath the pictorial title vignette, rear board with gilt vignette from 'Petites Misères de la Vie Humaine', banded spine with elaborate gilt tooling and titles in five compartments, marbled endpapers, green silk placemarker, t.e.g. [PROVENANCE: With the printed bookplate in red and black of 'I. C. A. Chicora' to front pastedown]. Grandville's finest book and mag- num opus, an extraordinary imaginative tour de force in a variant of the publisher's de luxe full morocco binding.] Un nouveau monde est né; que Grandville soit loué. (Max Ernst). Grandville's most remarkable book, an expansive flight of inspirational fantasy, and a remarkable precursor. It is clear that the influence of this work extends onward in the nineteenth and well into the twentieth centuries and beyond. A remarkable work of sui generis imaginative verve, Grandville produced the illustration which was then illustrated with a commissioned text. The tale of three demi-gods, Dr. Puff, Dr. Krackq, and Dr. Hahblle, their created worlds and travels. The work, a descendant of the works of Swift and Goya, inspired, in passing, Lewis Carroll (La Battaille des Cartes), Max Ernst, the Surrealists in general as well as later caricaturists such as Steadman and Scarfe. The binding for the present copy, not cited by Carteret is likely unique. As for the very few other known copies in the deluxe binding, the front board reproduces the frontispiece showing la Charge et la Fantaisie passant de l'ancien monde à l'autre signed by Liebherre. The rear board normally blank or displaying the same stamp, here features another, taken from the Petites Misères de la Vie Humaine. In this remarkable book, of the boldest possible originality, Grandville dared to reveal his dream to the public. (Ray). The full title - which gives a good indication of the enormously broad scope of the work - reads as follows: Un Autre Monde: Transformations, visions, incarnations, ascensions, locomotions, explorations, pérégrinations, excursions, stations, cosmogonies, fantasmagories, rêveries, folâtreries, facéties, lubies, métamorphoses, zoomorphoses, lithomorphoses, métempsycoses, apothéoses et autre choses. [Ray 196; SR / BF 76 / 77; Carteret III, 285; Rebeyrat 287]. £22,500 / €24,525 4. GRANDVILLE. Les Fleurs Animées, par J.-J. Grandville. Paris. Gabriel de Gonet, Editeur. (1847). 2 vols. 8vo. (274 x 188 mm). pp. (ii), 260, (i); (ii), (i), (i), 102; (i), (iv), (iv), 105 - 234, (i). Half-titles with printer's credit verso, elaborate engraved pictorial titles with additional colouring by hand and printed titles to each vol., printed text and 50 engraved plates all with additional colour by hand; the two parts of the supplement 'Botanique et Horticulture des Dames' with intro- duction by Karr and text by 'le Comte Foelix' with the two additional uncoloured engraved plates are also present. Original publisher's midnight blue percaline with elaborate gilt decorative floral and foliate tool to front board by Peau after by Grand- ville, smaller vignette within foliate frame and tooling in blind to rear board, smooth spine with gilt titles and elaborate tooling to match, cream glazed endpapers, a.e.g. Grandville's Les Fleurs Animées, an excellent copy in the first publisher's cartonnage.