Percier, Charles ─ Pierre Fontaine

Percier, Charles ─ Pierre Fontaine

Description des cérémonies et des fêtes qui ont eu lieu pour le mariage de S.M. l'Empereur Napoléon avec S. A. I. Madame l'Archiduchesse Marie-Louise d'Autriche.

À Paris, De l'imprimerie de P. Didot l'Aîné, 1810.

Folio (574 x 400 mm). Straight grained red morocco, wide gilt lace bordered with spirals of leaves and eagle heads, gilt arms in the center of the sides, smooth spine adorned with two crowned ciphers, interior gilt roulette, doublure and endpapers in blue tabby, border of gilt palmettes on the doublure, gilt edges (Tessier, engraved label with his address "rue de la Harpe, n° 45").

Precious copy with arms of Tsar Alexandre I, gift from Napoléon.

One of the few known copies containing the plates in double state: before the letter and water colored.

First edition.

13 plates (including 2 maps) after the line drawings by Percier and Fontaine engraved by Normand, Lacour, Clochard, Pauquet and Bance.

Charles Percier (1764-1838) and Pierre-François-Léonard Fontaine (1762-1853) worked on the embellishment of the Louvre, the Tuileries and Fontainebleau. Emblematic of the Empire style, these two architects provide an invaluable testimony of the festivities that marked the wedding of Napoléon and the Archduchess Marie-Louise of Austria. "The whole of France celebrated this great alliance with unanimous joy" (p. 45).

This splendid collection opens with the civil wedding ceremony in Saint-Cloud and ends with an homage given to the sovereigns by the whole civil service. A 45-page text recounts the event in great detail.

The binding was executed by Jean-Joseph Tessier (1745-1843), a bookbinder and gilder settled in Paris on rue de la Harpe who specialized in large formats. He worked essentially for the ministries of the Interior and of Finance and would become ordinary bookbinder to Napoléon I. His name remains attached to the Description de l’Égypte, for which he created special tools and various models of book bindings