Beschreibung:

Horapollo. Orus Apollo de Ægypte de la signification des notes Hieroglyphiques des Aegyptiens, cest a dire des figures par lesquelles ilz escrpuoient leurs mysteres secretz, & les choses sainctes & divines. Nouvellement traduict de grec en francoys & imprime avec les figures a chascun chapitre. Paris: Jacques Kerver, (23 November) 1543
First edition in French translation of the two books of Horapollo’s Hieroglyphica, a late fifth-century Greek study of hieroglyphic writing, here cast in the form of the emblem books by Alciati (Le Fèvre’s translation, 1536), La Perrière (1539), and Corrozet (1540), as a series of 197 woodcut illustrations (ca. 50 x 50 mm), each accompanied by a definition and a commentary. It is Kerver’s first illustrated book, after which he developed a taste for luxurious publications. Ten hieroglyphs are introduced from various sources, including the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (a French translation of that work would be published by Kerver in 1546, see lot 26). The set of woodblocks was reused for Jean Mercier’s Greek-Latin of the Hieroglyphica, published by Kerver in 1551, and 132 of the blocks were employed for a different French version, which Kerver published in 1553.
The translator is not named in the book. He is conventionally identified as the humanist Jean Martin (d. 1553), whose last literary effort, a French translation of Alberti’s De re ædificatoria, completed posthumously by Denis Sauvage, and published by Kerver after 2 August 1553, contains a preface listing “d’Orus Apollo” among Martin’s translations (f. a2r). Several recent critics have expressed doubts, wondering whether Martin might be responsible instead for the quite different version published by Kerver in 1553. Contrary to the declaration on Kerver’s 1543 title-page, the translation seems to be based, not on the Greek original, but for the most part on the Latin translation of Bernardino Trebazio (printed at Paris, ca. 1519, 1521, 1530; Lyon, 1542). The Greek text was first printed by Aldo Manuzio in 1505 (the Bibliotheca Brookeriana copy will be offered on 12 October 2023, lot 103).
The identities of the illustrators are also in doubt. Two hands are generally recognized, with the majority of the woodcuts attributed to Jean Cousin le Père, and the rest to Jean Goujon. Both artists collaborated with Kerver on subsequent publications. The attribution to Cousin originated with J.-M. Papillon in 1766, was confirmed by Ambroise Firmin Didot in 1872, and by Ruth Mortimer in 1964. Neither attribution, however, is secure, and persuasive arguments have recently been presented in favor of the young Baptiste Pellerin by Anna Baydova. Whoever the illustrator was, he evidently had at his disposal a number of prints by Dürer, as elements from the Apocalypse (1498), Saint Eustache (1501), Knight, Death and the Devil (1513), are incorporated.
This copy was bound for Sir Andrew Fountaine (1676–1753), a gentleman architect, who often had his books rebound in calf, stamped on covers or back with the Fountaine crest of an elephant statant, its trunk turned upwards (see lot 31 for another book from the Fountaine Library). Eight versions of this stamp are recorded by the Toronto database of British Armorial Bindings. The identities of Fountaine’s binders have yet to be discovered.
8vo (167 x 104 mm). Roman and italic types, lines highly variable. collation: a–n8: 104 leaves. 197 woodcuts (including 7 repetitions), by at least two different hands (Mortimer’s count and attribution), cancel woodcuts pasted to a6v and a8v, woodcut initials. (Title-page soiled, with tiny loss at upper fore-edge corner, scattered light staining and finger-soiling.)
binding: London light brown calf (171 x 109 mm), ca. 1720, for Sir Andrew Fountaine, 2 frames of gilt fillets, family crest (an elephant statant) in center of upper cover (stamp 5), spine gilt with title, marbled endpapers, edges speckled red. (Upper joint replaced, lower joint repaired at ends, corners slightly rubbed.)
provenance: Sir Andrew Fountaine (supralibros, family crest; descended in his family; Sotheby’s, London, 11–14 June 1902, lot 441), purchased by — “Bull” (12s) — Helmut Domizlaff, Munich (discreet embossed stamp on title-page) — Jörg Schäfer, Zurich (Catalogue 37, [1991], item 10, CHF 9500). acquisition: Purchased from Jörg Schäfer, 1991.
references: BP16 111280; USTC 37805; Adams, Rawles, & Saunders, A Bibliography of French Emblem Books (Geneva, 1999), F-328; Mortimer, French, no. 314; Anna Baydova, "L'illustration des hieroglyphica d'Horapollon au XVIe siècle" in Les 'Hieroglyphica' d'Horapollon de l'Égypte antique à l'Égypte moderne: histoire, fiction et réappropriation (Paris, 2021), pp. 255-269.