P.J. Buc'hoz | Premiere [Seconde] Centurie de Planches, Paris, [1775-]1781, 2 vols, red morocco gilt

Pierre-Joseph Buc'hoz

Premiere [Seconde] Centurie de Planches enluminees et non-enluminees representant au naturel ce qui se trouve de plus interessant et de plux curieux parmi les Animaux, les Vegetaux, et les Mineraux. Paris: chez Lacombe et chez l'Auteur, [1775-]1778-1781

FIRST EDITION, 2 volumes, folio (487 x 306mm.), 200 plates in 2 states: hand-coloured and plain, divided into decades each of which has a separate engraved title, contemporary red morocco gilt in the style of Derome, spines with raised bands in eight compartments, inner dentelles, gilt edges, blue endpapers, scattered spotting and dampstaining, volume 2, plate 10 with small closed tear to lower margin (not affecting illustration), marks to upper covers, spines slightly discoloured, extremities slightly rubbed

This impressive work, hand-coloured and in a Derome-style red morocco binding, was issued in twenty parts, each comprising twenty plates. There are sixty botanical plates, sixty plates of fossils, minerals, and rocks, and eighty zoological plates, of which twenty-six are ornithological.

LITERATURE:

Anker 73; Fine Bird Books, p. 63; Nissen IVB 156

PROVENANCE:

Antoine Pâris (1668-1733), comte de Sampigny; armorial book-plate: or, on a fess azure an apple slipped, surmounted by a count's coronet; book-plate inscribed "Liverlos fecit 1721", with the initials "A.P." in the lower corners; Pâris was a financier during the reign of Louis XlV and V. He amassed a very considerable fortune but his financial activities incurred envy resulting in his fall from Royal grace in 1776.