Gautier D'Agoty | Histoire naturelle … Règne Minéral, the rare folio issue, in original parts, Paris, 1781

Gautier d'Agoty, Jean-Fabien (& Jean-Baptiste-Louis Romé de l'Isle)

Histoire naturelle, ou exposition générale de toutes ses parties gravées et imprimées en couleurs naturelles, avec des notes historiques. Partie I. Règne Minéral. Paris: Imprimerie de Monsieur, sous la direction de P. Fr. Didot jeune,1781

4 parts folio (347 x 252 mm, uncut). 40 engraved plates printed in colors and finished by hand in colors and silver and gold after d'Agoty (1–30) and Desfontaines (31–40), with an additional uncolored impression of plate XX, accompanied by letterpress descriptions. Original plain (part 1) or printed (parts 2–4), stab-sewn (part 1) or stitched (parts 2–4); stitched parts shaken and partially loose, particularly part 2, the spine of which is perished.

The very rare folio issue of the first edition of Gautier d’Agoty’s Règne Minéral; parts, or “Decades,” 1–4 preserved in their original wrappers. No copy of the folio issue—which has suprior coloring to the quarto issue—is recorded in the auction records, and it is likely that parts 5 and 6 (as well as the perhaps-never-issued part 7; see previous lot) were not published in folio format.

REFERENCES

“Fabien Gautier D'Agoty and his Histoire Naturelle Règne Minéral,” in Wilson, Mineral Books, pp. 65–76; Wilson, Mineral Collecting, pp. 52–53

PROVENANCE

Leonard Baskin (Lurley Manor and Fort Hill booklabels, printed at the Gehenna Press ) — Bernard Quaritch LTD. (Catalogue 1079, Natural History, London, 1987, item 81)