RABELAIS, FRANCOIS.

Les Songes Drolatiques de Pantagruel ou sont contenues plusieurs figures de l'invention de Maitre Francois Rabelais.

Paris Librairie Tross 1869 Octavo. xviii pp., (64) ff. From a very small edition, this is one of only two copies printed entirely on vellum. Contains 120 plates, which are facsimiles of the illustrations to the extremely rare edition of 1565. These are early examples of a printing process called "gillotage," a method of printing from etched relief blocks patented by Firmin Gillot in 1850. In addition, there is a facsimile of the original text of 1565 as well as an eighteen-page explanatory introduction, both also on vellum. The illustrations themselves are imaginative and highly accomplished grotesques, combining animal, vegetable, and human forms in the style of Bosch and Brueghel. Rabelais is thought to have created the iconography, and the artist is unknown. Some have interpreted the figures allegorically, in terms of sixteenth-century political and ecclesiastical events. An extremely fine copy, unbound as issued, with tissue guards throughout. Housed in a marbled chemise and box, which shows light rubbing.

• USD 7,500.00 > other currencies
• ordernr.: 10808

• bookseller: Bromer Booksellers Inc. (USA)