BOFFRAND, Germain - Lot 60

BOFFRAND, Germain De architectura liber... Livre d'architecture contenant les principes généraux de cet art... ouvrage français et latin [followed by:] Description de ce qui a été pratiqué pour fondre en bronze d'un seul jet la figure équestre de Louis XIV Paris, Guillaume Cavelier, 1745 A SUPERB COPY IN CONTEMPORARY BLUE MOROCCO, FORMER COLLECTION OF THE COUNTS STROGANOV AND JACQUES BEMBERG FIRST EDITIONS. Text in French and Latin Two works in one folio volume (434 x 280mm) 1. Book of architecture. Vignette with the King's coat of arms at the head of the dedication, engraved by Tardieu fils after François Boucher. ILLUSTRATION: 68 plates, mostly double or folding, engraved in intaglio by Babel (6), Blondel (10), Fonbonne (2), Hérisset (5), Le Geay (1), C. Lucas (6), J. de La Marcade (12), Moreau (2), Mutel (2) and P. Tardieu (12); twelve are unsigned. Some numbering errors. Plates XXI and XLVII were not engraved and are not required in Index 2. Equestrian figure of Louis XIV. Same publisher, 1743. Wood-engraved vignettes, entablature and small endpapers. ILLUSTRATION: 20 engraved plates after drawings by Boffrand and Lesueur, including the equestrian portrait of Louis XIV after Lesueur engraved by Tardieu, some folding plates and double or single pages engraved by Blondel or Tardieu. The work is complete with the double-page plate of the oven, "sometimes missing" (Cohen-de Ricci). CONTEMPORARY BINDING. Blue morocco, gilt filleting, ornate ribbed spine, gilt edges. PROVENANCE : Count Grigori Alexandrovitch Stroganov (1823-1878; bookplate, library mark in ink, wet stamp of the library of the Imperial University of Siberia, Tomsk) -- Jacques Bemberg (bookplate; Paris, March 6, 2014, no. 108) Germain Boffrand (1667-1754), a native of Nantes, belonged to a family of painters, sculptors and architects. He was trained by Jules Hardouin-Mansart, who commissioned him to work on the Place Vendôme in 1686, and by the sculptor Bouchardon. From 1699 onwards, Boffrand attached himself to the great names of the kingdom, in particular the Duc du Maine and his mother, the Marquise de Montespan. His most famous works are the interiors of the Hôtel Soubise (pictured in this book) in 1732 and, above all, his achievements in Lorraine, where he became First Architect to the Duke Leopold in 1711. He designed the Château de Lunéville, Commercy, La Malgrange and Haroué, built between 1720 and 1732, as well as numerous private mansions in Nancy. For his friend and cousin, the painter Charles Le Brun, he designed a beautiful Parisian house. Germain Boffrand is thus considered the great architect of the Regency style. The second work in this series reports on Bouchardon's casting of the equestrian statue of Louis XIV to adorn Place Vendôme, formerly Place Louis-le-Grand. In 1685, Louvois, Louis XIV's Minister of War, wanted to create a new Parisian square, the Place des Conquêtes, on the site of the Hôtel de Vendôme. The project, also designed by Jules Hardouin-Mansart, was to feature an equestrian statue of Louis XIV at its center. Girardon created a seven-meter-high bronze statue (around seventeen with the pedestal) between 1685 and 1687. Girardon's sculpture was destroyed in 1792. The great book collector of the Stroganov family was Count Grigori Alexandrovitch Stroganov (1770-1857). His collection was expanded by his sons and grandsons - including Grigori Alexandrovitch Stroganov (1823-1878), owner of this copy. The 22,000 volumes in his library were donated to the Siberian Imperial University in Tomsk in 1878, when it was founded. The Tomsk library sold most of its books in 1929, during the Bolsheviks' mass dispersal of cultural assets under the first "Five-Year Plan". BIBLIOGRAPHY : Cohen-de Ricci, p. 163 (for both works) -- Millard, I, 30 (for both works) -- Fowler, 53 -- Berlin Kat., 2402 -- BAL, I, 317-318 -- Cicognara, 44 and 3485 -- On the Stroganov Collection: Galina Kolosova and Larisa Walsh, "The Stroganov Book Collection in the Context of Stalin's Campaign to Sell Russian Cultural Treasures Abroad", in Slavic & East European Information Resources, 2016