QUATREMÈRE DE QUINCY, Antoine-Chrysostome - Lot 80

QUATREMÈRE DE QUINCY, Antoine-Chrysostome Le Jupiter Olympien, or the Art of Ancient Sculpture Paris, De Bure frères, 1815 A SUPERB COPY, IN CONTEMPORARY MOROCCO SIGNED BY THOUVENIN. GRAND DE MARGE ET AQUARELLÉ In-folio (488 x 338 mm). Two large intaglio vignettes after de Fauvel, one after Boivin. COLLATION: 2 f. n. o.c., vi pp., 1 f. n. o.c., xxv pp., 458 pp. ILLUSTRATION: watercolor frontispiece and 31 plates, mainly drawn by the author, including 19 HAND-ENHANCED AQUARELLED. Long-grained red morocco, framed with a wide gilt roulette and gilt fillets, ornate ribbed spine. PROVENANCE : Michel Wittock (bookplate; Paris, October 24, 2013, V, no. 70) Joints fragile Antoine-Chrysostome Quatremère de Quincy (1755-1849), was the French introducer of the neoclassical aesthetics of Johann Winckelmann (1717-1768), and one of the pioneers of scientific archaeology. He ardently opposed the "removal" of works of art from their original sites, whether by the Revolutionaries or by imperial troops (Lettres à Miranda, 1796). The chryselephantine statue of Zeus at Olympia is a work by the Athenian sculptor Phidias, created around 436 BC in Olympia, and considered one of the seven wonders of the world in Antiquity. Destroyed in a fire after being moved to Constantinople in 475, this seated god inspired the figure of Christ the Pantocrator in Byzantine art. Quatremère de Quincy drew on the descriptions of the geographer Pausanias (ca. 115-ca. 180), themselves inspired by the Homeric epics, to offer here a representation of this famous statue. EXHIBITION: Relieurs et reliures décorées en France aux époques Directoire et Empire, Brussels, 2001, no. 78, copy reproduced. BIBLIOGRAPHY : Brunet, VI, col. 29514 -- Cicognara, 285 -- RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects), III, pp. 1593-1594, call number EW Catalogue No 2683# : "It is a pioneering work, dealing seriously for the first time with the chryselephantine idols of Pheidias" -- INHA : call number NUM FOL VA 328 WEBOGRAPHIE : RIBA : https://riba.sirsidynix.net.uk/uhtbin/cgisirsi/?ps=PNoM0vaM2E/MAIN_CAT/X/9 -- INHA : https://bibliotheque-numerique.inha.fr/idurl/1/12016