Oeuvres. Nouvelle édition.Paris, [Pierre Prault], 1734

A MASTERPIECE OF 18TH CENTURY FRENCH ILLUSTRATION

Portrait in the first volume engraved by Lepicié after Coypel and 33 full-page engraved plates by Laurent Cars after Boucher, 109 vignettes, 103 head- and tailpieces and 109 historiated initials engraved by Cars and Boucher after Blondel, Boucher and Oppenord.

6 volumes. Large 4to (290 x 225mm). Contemporary French mottled calf, triple gilt fillet on covers, spines richly gilt in compartments, morocco labels, r.e. (slight wear at headbands).

A handsomely bound set of this excellent edition of Molière, illustrated with the superb plates after Boucher, described by Cohen-de Ricci as  one of the "plus beaux livres de la première partie du XVIII siècle". Calot confirms that the illustrations are, "the triumph of a genre to which one regrets that Boucher did not remain faithful still longer: the rendering of the manners of his time and their elegance". 

Molière's text is presented with more care than ever before and the masterly designed full-page plates represent the high point of the painter Boucher's work in book illustration. As Ray notes, "Boucher effects a related transformation in the spirit of Molière's comedies. this is an eighteenth-century Molière. Though the plate for each of the thirty-three plays does indeed represent in a striking way the principal action... Boucher emphasises neither his author's comic mastery nor his moral seriousness. In his eyes Alceste, Harpagon, and Tartuffe are less interesting than the younger characters whose grace and coquetry he displays to admiration; and his best designs are usually elicited by the dramatist's least strenuous efforts. even in illustrating Molière, Boucher was still "the painter of the Graces".

This is an example of the second issue, printed in the same year as the first, with the correct spelling of the word 'Comtesse' in vol. VI, p. 360, line 12. A little browned in places but generally a fine copy.

Provenance. 19th century armorial bookplates of the Marquess of Hertford, Ragley Hall, Warwickshire.

Tchemerzine VIII, 359. Ray I, pp. 21-24. Cohen-de Ricci 712-714. Calot, p. 126.

Stock Code: 252765