Félibien, André

FÉLIBIEN, André (1619-1695). Tapisseries du Roy, ou sont representez les quatre elemens et les quatre saisons avec les devises qui les accompagnent et leur explication. [Engraved title: Devises pour les tapisseries du Roy.] Paris: Sebastien Mabre-Cramoisy, 1679.
Broadsheets (447 x 322 mm). Letterpress title with large engraved device with royal coat-of-arms, engraved title, two engraved section titles, and 32 emblematic half-page engravings by Le Clerc and other artists after Jacques Bailly and Charles Le Brun (lacking the 8 double-page plates of tapestries.) Late 18th-century Viennese red half morocco by Georg Friedrich Krauss for Albert von Sachsen-Teschen, flat spine gilt in compartments with gilt green morocco lettering-piece in second, the other compartments with central monogram 'AS' enclosed within radiant gilt lines. Provenance: Herzog Albrecht Kasimir August von Sachsen-Teschen (binding, shelfmark labels on front free endpapers); acquired from Gilhofer and Raunchburg, 1971.
Second or third edition. The work, first published in Paris in 1670 (see previous lot), describes the four elements and the four seasons each in four emblems, each with letterpress explanatory text above and below. The Tapisseries (published in 1670 and 1679) includes also 8 plates of tapestries, not present in this copy. The Emblemens first published in 1665 and 1668 (Landwehr 282) includes only the 32 emblems, as the edition above. Herzog Albrecht von Sachsen-Teschen (1738-1822), the founder of the eponymous Vienna Albertina, was a noted bibliophile who possessed a fine library of illustrated and finely-printed editions from the presses of Bodoni, Didot, and other leading European printers. Although unsigned, the present binding can be confidently attributed to Georg Friedrich Krauss (fl. 1791-1824), who was one of Herzog Albrecht von Sachsen-Teschen's principal binders. Berlin Kat. 1671; Landwehr, Romantic Emblem Books 286; See Praz, p. 334.