Beschreibung:

Gohory, Jacques. Livre de la Conqueste de la Toison d'or, par le Prince Iason de Tessalie, faict par figures avec exposition d'icelles. Paris: (Jean de Mauregard), 1563
A beautifully elegant binding made for presentation to the teenaged Henri, duc de Guise, who had just become duke on the death of his father earlier in 1563, in the French Wars of Religion. According to Hobson & Culot, this is the only known binding with the arms of Henri, duc de Guise, whose reputation is that of a soldier, not a scholar.
The plates illustrating the story of Jason and the Golden Fleece, with text (in French and Latin) by Jacques Gohory, was commissioned by Jean de Mauregard, a court official who dedicated the work to Charles IX and had copies beautifully bound for different recipients; surviving bindings were made for Charles, Cardinal of Lorraine (brother of duc Henri), Nicolas Dangu, and Vincenzo Lauro. Interestingly, the watermarks of the endleaves indicate that the paper stock for the binding and the printing was the same; Mauregard had obviously provided paper for both the printing and the binding, leaving no room for doubt that these were presentation bindings (Hobson & Culot, p.131). The Beckford catalogue ascribed the binding to Nicolas Ève.
The suite of plates was engraved by René Boyvin after drawings made by Léonard Thiry, an artist working at Fontainebleau, plausibly conceived as designs for tapestries. The captions, composed by Gohory, were engraved separately, so they could be printed in the relevant language. For another set of plates relating to the Fontainebleau school of artists, see lot 535.
For another copy of this work, with the text in Latin and in a contemporary French architectural binding for Nicolas Dangu, see Bibliotheca Brookeriana I, 11 October 2023, lot 43. This was also in the Destailleur collection, lot 1637 in that sale.
Oblong folio (268 x 362 mm). Roman type. 4 letterpress leaves (title-page, dedication, and two leaves of text), 26 engraved plates in their second state, with number at head of each plate. Woodcut initials. (Occasional light creasing, light marginal staining.)
binding: Contemporary French tan morocco elaborately gilt (272 x 373 mm), outer border composed of gilt azured leafy stamps, central panel of black-painted interlacing on a gilt dotted ground with azured leafy stamps, blank centre with painted arms of the Duc de Guise, spine with blind hatching, gilt edges. In modern drop-backed folding box. (Extremities rubbed, armorials partly worn away.)
provenance: Henri de Lorraine (1550-1588), duc de Guise, arms on binding — William Beckford (1759-1844), sale, Sotheby's, 11 December 1882, lot 254, £405 — Hippolyte Destailleur (1822-1893), sale, Paris, 13-25 April 1891, lot 1636 — Robert Hoe (1839-1909), sale, Anderson Art Auctions, 24 April 1911, lot 1505, $1,000 — Édouard Rahir (1862-1924), sale, Paris, 7 May 1930, lot 99, FF 60,000 — Edmée Maus (1905-1971), booklabel — Michel Wittock (1936-2020), green morocco gilt booklabel, sale, Christie's, Paris, 7 October 2005, lot 22. acquisition: Purchased at the preceding sale. references: Mortimer, Harvard French 520; A. Hobson & L. Culot, Italian and French 16th-century Bookbindings (Brussels: Bibliotheca Wittockiana, 1991), no 54; 176 Historic and Artistic Book-bindings from the Library of Robert Hoe (New York, 1895), no. 36