FINE BOOK # 4 Aesopus semper vivus - Peter Bichsel · Fine Books

I L L U S T R A T E D F A B L E B O O K S
The great Paris edition of La Fontaine’s fables in a copy on «papier moyen de Hollande» and
with the plate of «Le Singe et le Léopard» (vol. III, p. 113) in the first state without lettering on
the banner. One of the most ambitious works of French 18th-century book illustration. It was J.
B. Oudry (1685–1755) who, between 1729 and 1734, created drawings inspired from La Fontaine’s
fables as patterns for Gobelin tapestry. The financier Montenault bought these sketches
and commissioned C. N. Cochin the younger (1715 –1790) to redraw Oudry’s freehand drawings
for the present edition. In 1755, when the first volume was finished, financial support by
wealthy friends and by King Louis XV allowed de Montenault to accomplish the work within
four years. Copy from the estate of Alfred Reinhart, Winterthur/Switzerland, with his ex-libris
in the first volume. – Bodemann 135.1; Fabula docet 51; Cohen/de Ricci 548–550; Lewine 274;
Tchemerzine III, 874f.; Sander 1065. – Paper defect towards inner margin of first quires («Vie
de La Fontaine») of vol. I. The printed leaves in all volumes somewhat browned and with occasional
foxing or spotting. Plates mostly clean, few of them marginally foxed.
Copy of the German Banker Paul Wallich (1882–1938)
16 BONER. – (Bodmer, Johann Jacob and Johann Jacob Breitinger,
eds.). Fabeln aus den Zeiten der Minnesinger. Engr. title by Rudolf Füssli. (7)
leaves., 350 pp. Small 8vo. Contemp. boards with spine label (somewhat rubbed).
Zurich, Orell u. Comp. auf Kosten der Gesellschaft, 1757. CHF 980.– (EUR 650.–)
First critical edition of Ulrich Boner’s (15th cent.) «Edelstein» by the Zurich philologists Bodmer
and Breitinger. One of the outstanding documents of early German philology in the 18th
century. Bodmer and Breitinger didn’t know yet about the autorship. It was only G. E. Lessing
in 1773 who identified Ulrich Boner as the author of this fable collection which was first printed
in 1461 by Albrecht Pfister in Bamberg. According to Baechtold, Geschichte der deutschen
Literatur in der Schweiz (1892), p. 175, Boner is without doubt the most important fabulist of
elder German literature and the first treating fables as a separate type of literary narration. Copy
of the German banker Paul Wallich (1882–1938) with his ex-libris on first paste-down. – Bodemann
137.1; Fabula docet 1757; Vetter II, 14; Goedeke I, 269 and IV/1, 17, 113; Rümann 106;
Holzmann/Bohatta II, 2769; Baechtold, 172ff., 676 and notes 188, 61. – Slightly browned.
17 (Bodmer, Johann Jacob und Johann Jacob Breitinger). Lessingische
unäsopische Fabeln. Enthaltend die sinnreichen Einfälle und weisen
Sprüche der Thiere. Nebst damit einschlagender Untersuchung der Abhandlung
Herrn Lessings von der Kunst Fabeln zu verfertigen. With engr. frontispiece, engr.
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