Beschreibung:

DUBOIS MAISONNEUVE. Introduction à l'étude des Vases Antiques d'argile peints vulgairement appelés Étrusques . Paris: Pierre Didot l'âiné, 1817 [-1834].
DUBOIS MAISONNEUVE. Introduction à l'étude des Vases Antiques d'argile peints vulgairement appelés Étrusques . Paris: Pierre Didot l'âiné, 1817 [-1834]. 2° (577 x 433mm). 101 engravings on 97 plates, all but three of these finely hand-coloured. (Spotting in the text, tissue guards, and light spotting in a very few plate margins.) Contemporary green morocco by Ph. Selenka with his ticket, sides richly panelled in gilt and blind, pink glazed endpapers, edges gilt (minor wear). Provenance : an early reader (occasional light pencilled marginalia). FIRST EDITION. THE VERY RARE HAND-COLOURED ISSUE IN A FINE BINDING BY SELENKA. A masterpiece of 19th-century French printing, and one of the finest books in the field. The highly attractive plates reproduce scenes from vases in the collections of Hamilton, Pourtales, Tischbein, Lamberg, and others. Published serially in 17 parts, this work is rarely found complete or coloured. Both the British Library and V&A copies are incomplete, with 76 and 87 plates respectively. ABPC records only one copy selling at auction in over 30 years: the uncoloured Blackmer copy (Sotheby's, 11 October 1989, lot 560). Blackmer 499 ('coloured copies are also known and are especially attractive'); Brunet II, 848; Graesse II, 439; Vinet 1540 ('très bel ouvrage, presque introuvable').