Du Tillet, La chronique des Roys de France, Rouen, 1551, contemporary French entrelac binding

8vo, 170 x 105 mm. Roman and italic type, text in tables. collation: A⁴ a-p⁸ +⁸: 132 leaves (o2v and p8v blank). Five small woodcut portraits in text, woodcut initials, ruled in red, some manuscript annotations in ink. (Title-page soiled, waterstained and remargined without loss to text, marginal dampstaining throughout, small scattered ink stains to d8, pen trials to lower margin of n8v, smudged mark to +3 very slightly affecting text.)

binding: Contemporary French brown calf (175 x 113 mm), elaborate gold tooling with interlaced strapwork enamelled green and white against a pointillé ground and within a black enameled rectangular frame flanked by gilt fillets, flat spine tooled with repeated negative arabesque with azured ground, edges gilt. (Binding somewhat rubbed, around a quarter of upper cover missing and neatly supplied, small scattered wormholes to upper board, head and foot of spine repaired, hinges restored, later endpapers, endpapers soiled.)

provenance: English owner, sixteenth-century annotations and initials "M.ff." on title-page—Sotheby's, London, 19 February 1980, lot 333. acquisition: Purchased in 1987 from Ludwig Rosenthal, Netherlands. references: USTC 45421