HOLBEIN, Hans

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HOLBEIN, Hans
Icones historiarum Veteris Testamenti, ad vivum expressæ, extremáque diligentia emendatiores factæ Lyon, Jean Frellon, 1547 COPY OF THE MARQUISE DE POMPADOUR, OF CHARLES FAIRFAX MURRAY AND THEN OF GABRIEL ROSSIGNOL. ONE OF THE MOST BEAUTIFUL ILLUSTRATED BOOKS OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY First edition of 1547 according to R. Mortimer's criteria in the Harvard catalog Small in-4 (182 x 126mm). Text in Latin and French. Roman and italic characters. Two woodcut initials, typographical mark of Jean Frellon on the title page COLLATION : A-N4 : 52 ff. PRINTING : first edition copy of 1547, according to Mortimer, recognizable by the caesura in the title and the French text ending the first line of folio L1r with "vices" / ILLUSTRATION: 94 woodcuts attributed to Hans Lützelberger, "the prince of engravers" (Passavant) after Hans Holbein the Younger (1497-1543) - 2 of which are published in this edition for the first time, and 4 portraits of the evangelists woodcut by another hand on the verso of folio N3, which also appear here for the first time Eighteenth century binding. marbled calf, gilt decoration, arms in the center of the boards, fillet in frame, long back with vertical titling, red edges PROVENANCE: Marquise de Pompadour (1721-1764; arms in the center of the boards; Catalogue, Paris, 1765, no. 14, with dating error for the work corrected later) -- Charles Fairfax Murray (1849-1919; Early French Books, no. 244). Fairfax Murray probably added a line above the dates on the title page and colophon. The line, on the title page, belongs for R. Mortimer to the second edition of 1547, which Fairfax Murray thought was a characteristic of the first -- Gabriel Rossignol (explanatory note attached to the volume) Slight restorations to the hinges. The date on the title has been restored These Old Testament figures were drawn by Hans Holbein, as revealed in one of the opening verses of the work, signed Nicolas Bourbon, of Vandœuvres: "Hoc opus Holbinae nobile cerne manus" (I have seen this work by the noble hands of Holbein, fol. A2v). The cutting of the blocks is attributed to Hans Lützelburger. These figures were first published in 1538 and then in 1539 in the Historiarum Veteris Instrumenti Icones. The first edition (1538), printed in Lyon by Melchior and Gaspar Treschel, included ninety-two woodcuts. In 1547, the Frellon brothers undertook a new edition. François signed the notice to the reader and his brother Jean II (1517-1568), who had apprenticed as a bookseller in Basel before settling in Lyon in 1536, added to the images the ninety-four quatrains and the eightain in French by Gilles Corrozet, in the 1539 edition. BIBLIOGRAPHY: USTC 47522 -- Baudrier, V, 209 -- Brunet, III, 252-253 -- Mortimer, French, 282 -- Fairfax Murray, French, I, no. 244 -- Adams, B-1963 -- Sybille von Gültlingen, Bibliographie des livres imprimés à Lyon au seizième siècle, VIII, p. 27, no. 7 -- Picot, Rothschild, 16 -- Brun, p. 131 -- Martine Delaveau and Denise Hillard, Bibles imprimées du XVe au XVIIIe siècle conservées à Paris, 1259 -- Engammare, "Les figures de la Bible. Le destin oublié d'un genre littéraire en image (XVIe-XVIIe s.)", in Mélanges de l'École française de Rome. Italie et Méditerranée, t. 106, n° 2, 1994, p. 549-591 -- Jeudwine, Art and Style in Printed Books, I, pp. 168 and 216
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