Royal8vo. Two beautiful cont. uniform full leather bindings. Rebacked, preserving the old brown richly gilt backs. The old backs are not totally in conformity with the boards, which are burgundy-coloured and w. wide decorated blindstamped frames and single gilt line-frames. Some of the gilding to edges of boards is worn off. Bdgs. w. signs of use. Right upper corner of vol. one is missing a small part of the leather. Woodcut frontispices on china and woodcut half-titles on vellum (velin), in the second volume, these have been marginally repaired. Title-pages and frontispieces brownspotted, probably mainly due to paper-quality, otherwise only occational brownspotting. A nice copy with numerous woodcut vignettes by Johannot.
First edition thus. The first edition with the superb illustrations by Johannot. This splendid editions contains 800 woodcuts, two woodcut frontispieces and two woodcut half-titles, all by Johannot. "Les deux frontispices sont tirés sur chine et les faux titres ornés sur papier vélin blanc". (Carteret, vol.3, pp. 136.). There exists two variants, recognizable on the frontispiece-portrait of Don Quichotte, on the present he is presented with the "moustaches". This is one of the most splendid French illustrated works of the 19th century. "Un des très beaux livres illustrés du XIXe avec Molière, également illustré par Johannot: ce sont "les deux frères jumeaux". (Carteret III:130). With the illustrations for Molière, the counterpart to this edition, Johannot had opened up for a succession of bookillustrators. The woodcuts were carried out for in England and France for the illustrators by all the same woodcutters, and a certain fatigue soon became the consequence. The illustrations of Gigoux, for instance, who, though being a great artist, lacks the boldness and charm that distinguishes Johannot, came to resemble those of Johannot remarkably, due to the likeness of the woodcutters. Obviously something had to be done to gain distinction, and this is exactly what Johannot does with the illustrations for Don Quichotte. "Gigoux ist im Vergleich mit Johannot reifer, geschlossener; aber ihm fehlte da sprudelnde Temperament, der grosse Charme, den Johannot besass. Besonders in den landschaftlichen Stücken war dieser überlegen. Infolge der Gleichheit der Holzschneider wurden die beiden Werke trotz des verschiedenen Temperaments ihrer Urheber einander merkwürdig ähnlich. Der "Gil Blas" hatte bei seinem Erscheinen den Grösseren Erfolg. Johannot übertrumpfte ihn aber beriets im nächsten Jahre mit seinem "Don Quichotte" (Abb. 73, 74). Auch hierfür zeichnete er 800 Holzschnittvignetten. J. J. Dubochet verlegte das Werk, das Beraldi "la plus ingénieuse et la plus appréciée des illustrations de Johannot" nennt. Der Unterschied zwischen dem "Molière" und dem "Don Quichotte" is gross. Gewiss trieb auch der Vorwurf den künstler zu stärkerer Entfaltung seines Talentes an, aber andererseits waren die Holzschneider um diese Zeit bereits besser geschult." (Rümann, pp. 129).
DKK 7500.00
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