Item #401761 Les Métamorphoses du jour. Jean Ignace Isidore Gérard GRANDVILLE.
Les Métamorphoses du jour
Les Métamorphoses du jour
Les Métamorphoses du jour
Les Métamorphoses du jour
Les Métamorphoses du jour

Les Métamorphoses du jour

Paris: Bulla; and Brussels: Borella, [1829]. Oblong folio (250 x 338 mm). Scarce one-leaf letterpress introduction signed Achille Comte. 72 hand-colored lithographic plates by Joseph Langlumé after Grandville. Early-20th-century blue half morocco, spine gilt-lettered. Some occasional foxing, plate 31 shaved at outer margin, possibly inserted from another copy. Provenance: purchased from Marlborough Rare Books, 2004. From the Collection of Arthur & Charlotte Vershbow. Item #401761

FIRST EDITION OF GRANDVILLE’S FIRST MAJOR SUCCESS. “Hélas! Hélas! Quand donc les humains seront-ils aussi vrai, aussi naifs, aussi charmants que ces illustrations de Granville” (Carteret). In this series, Grandville satirizes the vices of contemporary society by substituting human heads with those of animals. Plates 1-71 are numbered and published by Bulla in Paris; plate 72 unnumbered but with the number added in manuscript (it was published by Borella in Brussels). There was another suppressed plate, not present in this copy. According to Renonciat, eight plates are in the first state and four with titles in French and English. While later impressions of this work are common, the first edition is quite scarce. Carteret III, pp. 282-4; Ray, French Illustrated Books, 132.

Price: $3,500.00

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