930 - Navvara,M.v.

Navvara,M.v. Les Nouvelles (Heptaméron Français). 3 volumes. With 3 ed. Titles (wdh.) and 73 copper plates after S. Freudenberg as well as 72 head and 72 tail vignettes after B. A. Dunker. Bern, Nouvelle Société Typographique, 1780-1781. 8°. XLVII, 275 (recte: 279) pp.; [1] leaf, 308 pp.; [1] leaf, 250 pp., [1] leaf. Marbled calfskin bindings of the period with gilt spine and cover fillets (spine heavily rubbed and bumped, capitals brittle and with small defects, 1 spine improperly replaced at foot). Cohen/R. Sp. 680-681 - Sander 1278 - Lewine p. 338 - cf. Fürstenberg p. 113f. - First edition of the beautiful and famous Bernese Heptameron edition, at the same time the main illustrative work of the Swiss Sigmund Freudenberg and the German Balthasar Dunker. "Les figures... sont très jolies et gravées avec une finesse remarquable" (Cohen/R.). The engravings by Guttenberg, Halbou, Henriquez, de Launay jeune, de Longueil, Leroy et al. "Yet more important than the correct, technically perfect, sometimes a little dry plates after Freudenberg, who drew each a scene of the Nouvelle close to the text, are the 144 head and tail pieces by Balthasar Anton Dunker ... created. His vignettes are witty allegories, satirical and light-hearted epigrams, most of which he etched himself with graceful ease and a keen sense of ornament as well as a keen sense of observation. Each headpiece makes the quintessence of the associated narrative clear in all brevity" (Coll. Kritter 21). - With the erroneous pagination in vol. I after p. 166 (see Cohen/R. sp. 680). - Blocks chipped, variously browned, finger marks in places.