La Chine en Miniature & Coup d'Oeil sur la Chine; ou Choix del Costumes, Arts et Métiers de cet Empire.
Paris: Nepveu Librairies, 1811 & 1812. First Edition. 18mo, 3 vols.; 5 1/8 x 3 1/4 inches (130 x 82 mm), printed on vélin collé. The first four tomes published as the first series in 1811 (bound into two volumes); the third volume contains the 2 tomes of the second series, published the following year with a modified title "Coup d'oeil sur la Chine, ou nouveau choix de costumes....." Volume 1: xxxvi, 144, 172 pp; Volume 2: 172, 186, 220 pp.; Volume 3: xxii, 236, 234 pp.
Plates throughout the 3 volumes have bright and saturated hand coloring for a total of 108 hand-colored plates thus divided: Volumes 1 and 2 have 4 frontispieces + 76 hand-colored plates (although the title pages erroneously call for 74); Volume 3 has 28 plates, many of which are folding. The total count for color plates is 108 as called for in Colas and Lipperheide.
Elegant Bayntun Riviere, Bath binding (stamp on first endpaper) in crimson morocco with gilt frames on boards, gilt title and lotus decorations on spine compartments, gilt edges and inner dentelles; marbled endpapers; a.e.g. Few faint spots on early pages but paper clean and supple and bindings pristine; a few pages uncut.
[Cordier (Sinica) I, 45; Colas 433-434; Lipperheide 1524; Brunet 15565; BNF30159549].
This refined set, bound by Bayntun Riviere, is a kaleidoscopic collection – exotic and popular at the same time– which captures the essence of late 18th-century China in 108 miniatures.
The illustrations come from two young Chinese Catholic priests Aloys Ko and Etienne Yang who studied in France with the support of the French statesman Henri Léonard Bertin. He was controller of finances under Louis XV during the Seven Year War, and later responsible for the East India Company (1762-80) and supporter the French Jesuits in China. Upon their return to China, Bertin commissioned the two artists to illustrate life in China of the period. They produced more than 400 drawings, many of which were used in this work, that revealed a strange and fascinating world to a wider European audience.
The meticulous miniatures, accompanied by explanatory texts, were published in these four exquisite volumes, to which two more were added in 1812 even though Colas states that "les quatres premiers volumes forment un ensemble complet" (the first four volumes form a complete set).
The plates, some of which are copied after G. H. Mason's "Costumes of China" (1800-1801), include various costumes, punishments, commerce, entertainment, crafts (porcelain, silk, weaving), rice processing, musical instruments, weapons, boats, toys, puppet shows, hunting, festivals, and a seated portrait of Emperor Kien-Long.
Condition: Fine.
Item number: 1274
Price: $6,000.00
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