Le Pois, Discours sur les medailles et graveures antiques, Paris, 1579, red morocco gilt, Northwick copy

LE POIS, ANTOINE. Discours sur les medalles et graveures antiques, principalement Romaines. Plus, une Exposition particuliere de quelques planches ou tables estans sur la fin de ce livre, esquelles sont monstrees diverses Medalles & graveures antiques, rares & exquises. Par M. Antoine Le Pois, Conseiller & Medecin de Monseigneur le Duc de Lorraine. Paris: Mamert Patisson, 1579

FIRST EDITION. There are six recorded issues of this edition: this is issue V with a portrait of Le Pois on a separate leaf, no colophon, and the plates lettered *, A-N and a-f.

The author was physician to Charles III, duc de Lorraine, and the work was published posthumously by his brother. The five large woodcuts are of four recently discovered ancient statues and a Roman vase. The full-page Priapus woodcut on o2v is unmarked and unmutilated, which is often not the case.

Chapter 1 contains references to Columbus, Vespucci and the New World, in particular Brazil.

4to (216 x 154mm.). Roman type, 40 lines plus headline. Collation: â⁴ ê⁴ A-Z⁴ a-p⁴: 160 leaves. Engraved frontispiece portrait, woodcut Estienne device on title, woodcut initials, 25 woodcut illustrations (5 full-page, 20 medallions), 20 engraved plates bound at end. (Small defect to portrait, occasional light foxing.)

Binding: Early eighteenth-century French red morocco (222 x 167 mm), triple gilt fillet on covers, spine gilt in compartments, gilt edges. (Lower corners slightly bumped.)

Provenance: John Rushout, second Baron Northwick (1769-1859, who owned a substantial cabinet of coins and medals, sold by Sotheby's in 1859-1860), armorial bookplate [most likely inherited by Edward George Spencer-Churchill, 1876-1964, sale of Northwick books, Christie, Manson & Woods, 24-25 June 1965] — Alan G. Thomas, collation note on flyleaf dated 1965 — P.A. Milne-Henderson (1935-2018), bookplate, sale, Sotheby's, 18 July 2016, lot 59. Acquisition: Purchased at the preceding sale. References: Alden, European Americana 579/31; Dekesel L17; Mortimer, Harvard French 350; USTC 20821