Typography and Printing

31 Gillé Type Specimen
Gillé, Joseph-Gaspard. Extensive Type
Specimen Collection, including decorated
display types, rules, decorative borders,
and an extensive collection of devices and vignettes. 167 leaves of specimens &
prospectuses, Paris, Gillé, 1802-1813. Folio, ll. 167 and including one large folding
printed type specimen broadside (some wear in folds) and a number of double-page
broadsides; disbound, preserved in recent wrappers, and protected in a custom-made
fold-over box. E 6500.00
See Audin 75-79; Birrell & Garnett 47; Gaskell, Barber & Warrilow, F9; Barber, French Letterpress
printing p. 14; Fleuron 6, pp. 167 etc.. A particularly comprehensive collection of type specimens,
including text, display and exotic fonts, together with borders, rules, ornaments and vignettes
proposed by the innovative typefounder and printer Gillé fils. Included are the very rare prospectus
for a printing manual, the large folding type specimen and the engraving of the printing press, which
are all often lacking. Gillé is particular important as a promoter of the newer styles of ornament,
offering typographic decoration to the printers of France, in a kind of stereotyped, which he asserted
was in design and method of reproduction
destined to overthrow the
outdated woodcuts of the ancient
regime. (see Fleuron VI, p. 167 ff).
A full listing is available on request.
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