Beschreibung:

DU BARTAS, Guillaume de Saluste, seigneur (1544-1590). Commentaires et annotations sur la semaine de la creation du monde . Paris: Pierre Chevillot for Abel l'Angelier, 1583. 2 parts in one volume, 4° (240 x 172mm). Engraved title, part title with woodcut publisher's device. Woodcut headpieces and initials. Ruled throughout in red. (Variable light spotting and browning, occasional inkmarking, some very light marginal dampstaining, title laid down, lower margin of title excised and re-margined, á2.3 reinforced at head of bifolium.) BINDING: ?Genevan contemporary calf gilt, boards with central plaque of interlaced foliate designs in relief on a pointillé ground enclosed within silver- and black-painted strapwork, surrounded by leafy sprays, fleurs de lis, and hatched foliate tools, relief strapwork cornerpieces, black-painted border formed by fillets within borders of leafy volutes and a single fillet, board-edges tooled in blind, spine gilt with foliate tools and painted in silver and black, diagonally-hatched bands at the head and foot of the spine, edges gilt and gauffered with a strapwork design ornamented with leaves, the design painted (a little rubbed and chipped causing minor loss of paint, lacking ties, splitting on hinges, lacking front free endpaper, skilful repairs to spine ends and corners); modern green cloth solander box. Reliures du Moyen Age au Premier Empire , Brussels, 1955, no. 71, pl. XVII; Hobson/Culot 2 no. 63. PROVENANCE: early inscription on á2r -- Pierre (early inscription on VVv2r -- engraved bookplate of a bishop or an abbot on the upper pastedown --Jacques-Charles-Brunet (pencilled inscription on rear free endpaper; sale, Paris, 20-24 April 1868, part I, lot 318) -- Ricardo Heredia y Livermore, count of Benahavis (pencilled inscription on rear free endpaper; sale, Paris, 16-25 May 1892, part II, lot 1582) -- Hector de Backer (pencilled inscription on rear free endpaper; sale, 17-20 February 1926, part I, lot 437) -- Gérard Hupin. A FINE PAINTED BINDING, probably of Genevan origin. As Hobson/Culot 2 note, this binding draws on both moorish and arabic styles of decoration, and, whilst certain elements familiar from Parisian bindings are present, others are alien to that style; the design is far closer to that of bindings produced in Geneva (which, as a centre of religious reform, attracted French Protestants working in the printing and binding trades, such as Henri Estienne, in the latter part of the sixteenth century). Whilst aspects of French binding techniques were integrated into the vernacular work, a distinct style remained (developing, for example, the double-board technique, which permitted inset panels as a decorative device), and the unusual combination of black and silver paints -- which can be found on a copy of Novum Testamentum , (Geneva, 1565), bound by the Genevan King's Binder (cf. Foot, Davis Gift I, 16) -- is more typical of Genevan than French bindings. The rear free endpaper is watermarked close to the outside edge, a position which is typical of Genevan papers, and reinforces the probable attribution. Adams D-967; Brunet V, 98.