MAIMBOURG, Louis - Lot 44

Lot n° 44
Go to lot
Estimation :
800 - 1000 EUR
Result with fees
Result : 3 791EUR
MAIMBOURG, Louis - Lot 44
MAIMBOURG, Louis Histoire de la décadence de l'Empire après Charlemagne. Paris, Mabre-Cramoisy, 1679. In-4 (265 x 192 mm) of [9] ff., 650 pp., [10] ff. (table). Red morocco, triple gilt fillet on the boards, spine with ornamented nerves, gilt roulette on the edges and inside, gilt edges (period binding). ORIGINAL EDITION of this treatise dedicated to Louis XIV, decorated with a beautiful allegorical frontispiece engraved on copper by Jacques Jollain after P. Sevin. Pierre Bayle in his Dictionnaire historique et critique praises the author's talent as a historian: "There are few historians, even among those who write better than him and who have more knowledge, who have the skill to attract the reader as he does." A precious and superb copy with the large arms of the dauphine Marie-Anne de Bavière (1660-1690), wife of the Grand Dauphin, son of Louis XIV. It bears the wet stamp of her crowned cipher in the upper corner of the title page (Olivier, pl. 2523 for the arms, with a variant in the right shield). Marie-Anne-Christine de Bavière, daughter of Ferdinand-Marie, elector and duke of Bavaria, and Henriette-Adélaïde de Savoie, had obviously, according to Ernest Quentin Bauchart (II, 415), "very serious tastes, loved letters, and protected Racine, who came to read to her, on March 20, 1685, the speech he had made at the Academy, at the reception of Corneille and Bergeret." VERY RARE PROVENANCE. An 18th century handwritten note in pen, partly cut out, on a flyleaf indicates that the work was bought in Paris for 16 livres in 1719 and presents the signature "J. M de Loen", probably the writer and bibliophile Johann Michael von Loën (1694-1776) who owned a prestigious library which he had begun to inventory under the title Bibliotheca Loeniana selecta realis systematica; a project he unfortunately did not complete. German library wetstamp ("Ordensseminar Geistingen, CSSR, Hennef (Sieg)") on the front cover and an old label of the same library with a withdrawal label laminated with the words "double" on the upper flyleaf. Some light marginal foxing.
My orders
Sale information
Sales conditions
Return to catalogue