Figures de la Bible illustrees de huictains francoys, pour l'interpretation et intelligence d'icelles.Lyon: Guillaume Rouillé, 1565

RARE PICTURE BIBLE WITH FRENCH VERSE

[Bound with:]  PONTOUX (Claude de). Figures du Noueau Testament, illustrées de huictains francoys.

Lyon: Guillaume Rouillé, 1570.

Rouillé's woodcut eagle and serpent device on both titles, Old Testament with 18 full-page and 251 half-page woodcuts (from 249 blocks, 2 repeats), the New Testament with 159 half-page woodcuts, after Pierre Eskrich (1530-90).

8vo (160 x 107mm) 18th French century calf, spine gilt in compartments with fleuron tool, red morocco label (headcap repaired, extremities rubbed).

A rare complete edition of Rouillé's picture bible, with verses in French by Guillaume Guéroult (d. ca. 1570) for the Old Testament, first printed in the previous year, and by Claude de Pontoux (c. 1530-1579) for the New Testament, printed here for the first time. The majority of the woodcuts are half-page, printed one to a page, with the book and chapter printed above and the eight-line verse below, reminiscent of an emblem book. The Old Testament is dedicated to Catherine de' Medici and Rouillé explains in the preface of the New Testament that the delay in its publication was due to a bad outbreak of the plague that had affected Lyon.

In 1562 Rouillé began a series of illustrated Bibles in various formats as successors to popular volumes produced at Lyons by Jean de Tournes. Rouillé first commissioned a set of Old Testament blocks, designed by Pierre Eskrich after Bernard Salomon's illustrations for de Tournes Quadrins historiques (1553) but, as noted by Mortimer "these are not close copies" and also "interesting for the addition of the eighteen full-page and two half-page blocks". The New Testament blocks followed and were introduced in a Latin Bible of 1569 and this is the first appearance with the French verse. Mortimer notes that they are "more independent of Bernard Salomon, except in the Apocalypse where Eskrich appears to have worked from both Salomon and Hans Sebald Beham". Two blocks (Ii6r 'Moni' & KK5r 'IM') hold the name of the woodcutter, possibly Jean Moni.

This edition was also used as a pattern books for the decorative arts, for example a Limoges plate at the Victoria & Albert Museum, from a set which illustrated episodes from the story of Joseph. "The enamelling workshop, which signed its products 'I.C.' for 'Jean Court', was fairly faithful to the prints it used as design sources. This scene of Joseph's wife Asenath with her new-born sons Manasseh and Ephraim follows a wood engraving by Pierre Eskrich" from the present work (see V&A website: https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O276612/plate-de-court-jean).

First title lightly soiled, a little dampstained in places, in second part headlines occasionally just cropped.

I. Baudrier IX, p. 287. Brun, p. 204 Fairfax Murray French 41. Mortimer French 92 (1564 edition). OCLC/USTC only Folger and Morgan in US.

II. Baudrier LX, p. 331. Brun, p. 204. Mortimer, French 93. Neither work in Adams. OCLC/USTC only Folger, Harvard, La Salle, Princeton & UC Irvine in US.

Stock Code: 252577