"VERNIS MARTIN" BINDING -- Charles-Guillaume ETIENNE (1778-1845). Bruis et Palaprat, comédie en un acte et en vers . Paris: Le Normant for Madame Masson, 1807. 8 o. FIRST EDITION. -- [Bound with:] ETIENNE. Cendrillon, opéra-féerie en trois actes et en prose musique de M. Nicolo Isouard . Paris: Charles Pougens for Vente, 1810. 8 o. Revised third edition. Engraved frontispiece of Alexandrine St. Aubin in the title role. -- [And:] ETIENNE. Les deux gendres, comédie en cinq actes et en vers . Paris: Le Normant and Barba, 1811. 8 o. Third edition.
"VERNIS MARTIN" BINDING -- Charles-Guillaume ETIENNE (1778-1845). Bruis et Palaprat, comédie en un acte et en vers . Paris: Le Normant for Madame Masson, 1807. 8 o. FIRST EDITION. -- [Bound with:] ETIENNE. Cendrillon, opéra-féerie en trois actes et en prose musique de M. Nicolo Isouard . Paris: Charles Pougens for Vente, 1810. 8 o. Revised third edition. Engraved frontispiece of Alexandrine St. Aubin in the title role. -- [And:] ETIENNE. Les deux gendres, comédie en cinq actes et en vers . Paris: Le Normant and Barba, 1811. 8 o. Third edition. 3 works bound in one volume (205 x 125 mm). IMPORTANT CONTEMPORARY ODORLESS VARNISHED BINDING, a technique known as "Vernis Martin" or "Reliures en Vernis sans odeur": crimson leather spine and paper boards, heavily varnished, the sides decorated with scratched gold-leaf and painted in gold and silver to a classical design, framed borders containing vases, floral garlands, flowers, musical instruments, masques and putti, grape ornament at the angles, full-length figure of the muse Terpsichore in the large central panel (with lyre on front cover, signed by FRANÇOISE CALLIER, née FIXON; with garland on back cover); the spine in compartments with three morocco lettering-pieces (night-blue for the first two titles, citron for the third) and gold and silver emblems relating to the three plays (including Cinderella's slipper); decorated board-edges and turn-ins, pale-blue silk liners, gold-tooled floral border around the doublures, gilt leaf-edges, circular blind-stamped certificate "brevet d'invention" on front-flyleaf. (Slight flaking along joints and binding-edges.) EXTREMELY FINE CONDITION for this notoriously fragile type of binding. The LUSTROUS FINISH was obtained by the application of dozens of layers of lacquer and by carefully rubbing the binding down between each coat of varnish. Provenance : Cortlandt F. Bishop (bookplate, New York sale, Kende Galleries 7 t h December 1948, lot 111, $1,050 to Offenbacher). VERNIS MARTIN BINDINGS ARE OF THE GREATEST RARITY: just over two dozen examples have so far been recorded. Albert Ehrman's census ( The Book Collector , Winter 1965, pp. 523-529) listed two examples of type A, apparently executed in the technique invented by the brothers Martin in 1730 (their patent renewed in 1744) for furniture and objects, and 18 of type B as reinvented and patented by THÉODORE-PIERRE BERTIN in 1811, specifically for bookbindings. The Bishop-Hauck binding is no. 4 in Ehrman's list of type B. To this census several examples can now be added: Paris, Arsenal Library, RES 8-PN-3173; Brussels, Royal Library (from the Solvay Collection, see Georges Colin in The Book Collector , Autumn 1969); Geneva, Institut et Musée Voltaire (see note by Giles Barber in The Book Collector , Autumn 1966); M. Breslauer cat. 103, no. 139, color pl. 21; The Wormsley Library , ed. H.G. Fletcher, no. 72. At least two other "Vernis Martin" bindings (or "Vernis Bertin" as they should perhaps be called) are known with their decoration signed by Françoise Callier: Morgan Library (Ehrman B13, pl. V and VI) and Wormsley (M. Breslauer 104/107, col. pl. XV). For earlier literature, see L. Gruel, Manuel historique et bibliographique de l'amateur de reliures I (1887) p. 155; and Gruel, "Reliures en vernis sans odeur", in: Bulletin du bibliophile et du bibliothécaire (1900) p. 189.
"VERNIS MARTIN" BINDING -- Charles-Guillaume ETIENNE (1778-1845). Bruis et Palaprat, comédie en un acte et en vers . Paris: Le Normant for Madame Masson, 1807. 8 o. FIRST EDITION. -- [Bound with:] ETIENNE. Cendrillon, opéra-féerie en trois actes et en prose musique de M. Nicolo Isouard . Paris: Charles Pougens for Vente, 1810. 8 o. Revised third edition. Engraved frontispiece of Alexandrine St. Aubin in the title role. -- [And:] ETIENNE. Les deux gendres, comédie en cinq actes et en vers . Paris: Le Normant and Barba, 1811. 8 o. Third edition.
"VERNIS MARTIN" BINDING -- Charles-Guillaume ETIENNE (1778-1845). Bruis et Palaprat, comédie en un acte et en vers . Paris: Le Normant for Madame Masson, 1807. 8 o. FIRST EDITION. -- [Bound with:] ETIENNE. Cendrillon, opéra-féerie en trois actes et en prose musique de M. Nicolo Isouard . Paris: Charles Pougens for Vente, 1810. 8 o. Revised third edition. Engraved frontispiece of Alexandrine St. Aubin in the title role. -- [And:] ETIENNE. Les deux gendres, comédie en cinq actes et en vers . Paris: Le Normant and Barba, 1811. 8 o. Third edition. 3 works bound in one volume (205 x 125 mm). IMPORTANT CONTEMPORARY ODORLESS VARNISHED BINDING, a technique known as "Vernis Martin" or "Reliures en Vernis sans odeur": crimson leather spine and paper boards, heavily varnished, the sides decorated with scratched gold-leaf and painted in gold and silver to a classical design, framed borders containing vases, floral garlands, flowers, musical instruments, masques and putti, grape ornament at the angles, full-length figure of the muse Terpsichore in the large central panel (with lyre on front cover, signed by FRANÇOISE CALLIER, née FIXON; with garland on back cover); the spine in compartments with three morocco lettering-pieces (night-blue for the first two titles, citron for the third) and gold and silver emblems relating to the three plays (including Cinderella's slipper); decorated board-edges and turn-ins, pale-blue silk liners, gold-tooled floral border around the doublures, gilt leaf-edges, circular blind-stamped certificate "brevet d'invention" on front-flyleaf. (Slight flaking along joints and binding-edges.) EXTREMELY FINE CONDITION for this notoriously fragile type of binding. The LUSTROUS FINISH was obtained by the application of dozens of layers of lacquer and by carefully rubbing the binding down between each coat of varnish. Provenance : Cortlandt F. Bishop (bookplate, New York sale, Kende Galleries 7 t h December 1948, lot 111, $1,050 to Offenbacher). VERNIS MARTIN BINDINGS ARE OF THE GREATEST RARITY: just over two dozen examples have so far been recorded. Albert Ehrman's census ( The Book Collector , Winter 1965, pp. 523-529) listed two examples of type A, apparently executed in the technique invented by the brothers Martin in 1730 (their patent renewed in 1744) for furniture and objects, and 18 of type B as reinvented and patented by THÉODORE-PIERRE BERTIN in 1811, specifically for bookbindings. The Bishop-Hauck binding is no. 4 in Ehrman's list of type B. To this census several examples can now be added: Paris, Arsenal Library, RES 8-PN-3173; Brussels, Royal Library (from the Solvay Collection, see Georges Colin in The Book Collector , Autumn 1969); Geneva, Institut et Musée Voltaire (see note by Giles Barber in The Book Collector , Autumn 1966); M. Breslauer cat. 103, no. 139, color pl. 21; The Wormsley Library , ed. H.G. Fletcher, no. 72. At least two other "Vernis Martin" bindings (or "Vernis Bertin" as they should perhaps be called) are known with their decoration signed by Françoise Callier: Morgan Library (Ehrman B13, pl. V and VI) and Wormsley (M. Breslauer 104/107, col. pl. XV). For earlier literature, see L. Gruel, Manuel historique et bibliographique de l'amateur de reliures I (1887) p. 155; and Gruel, "Reliures en vernis sans odeur", in: Bulletin du bibliophile et du bibliothécaire (1900) p. 189.
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.jpg "Source: Christie's")
.jpg "Source: Christie's")
