B 1,000,107
CORE
The Roederer Library
By Seymour de Ricci
?;

997
R71呂
​R49

ASTIR
VKRĪTAJ
OF THE
LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
TTHA
PRESENTED BY
THE PUBLISIER
:
!
The Roederer Library
of French Books
Prints and Drawings of the
Eighteenth Century

By SEYMOUR DE RICCI
EDITOR OF THE
Guide de l'Amateur de Livres à Gravures
du XVIII Siecle
THE ROSENBACH COMPANY
1320 WALNUT STREET
PHILADELPHIA
273 MADISON Avenue
NEW YORK
1923
Z
997
R712
R41
Publisher
gr.
-19-1923 THE ROEDERER LIBRARY
Of all the various kinds of books which
tempt and have tempted collectors of all coun-
tries, no series perhaps has such a wide appeal
to every well-read man or woman as the French
volumes of the eighteenth century.
Do we consider the text: what is more
desirable than a fine Molière or a first edition
of Rousseau? Do we prefer handsome printing:
here we have Didot's masterpieces and Cor-
neille's Rodogune from Madame de Pompadour's
own private press? Does our taste incline us
towards the beauty of the illustration: what
greater names could we wish for than Boucher,
Moreau or Fragonard? Lastly, are we lovers of
bindings: have we not the gems produced by
Padeloup and Derôme? And when we sum up,
are we not entitled to query whether any other
century in any other country has produced a
more brilliant combination of pleasing and
masterful talent?
Three years ago, I had the proud pleasure of
bringing to the notice of the American public
the treasures of the Robert Schuhmann library,
one of the very best ensemble of the kind which
has ever been brought together. And now the
destinies of books have brought under the same
roof the treasures, greater still by far, of the
Roederer collection, the finest series of eight-
eenth-century French books any one connois-
seur has ever succeeded in bringing together.
Louis Roederer, whose name has been famil-
iar for half a century to a considerable portion
of the public, was, in the Parisian book-market,
one of the meteors of the last century: from
1875 to 1881, he was the most generous and the
most enthusiastic of all French buyers. Not
only did he secure practically all the important
items that came up for auction, not only did he
liberally patronize every bookseller in Europe;
he went as far as to persuade nearly all the
French collectors of his day to surrender their
treasures to his bid. Léon Mercier's collection
he purchased as a whole; Comte de Sauvage and
Emile Pereire could not resist his tempting
offers for their series of Marillier and Oudry
drawings; he even succeeded-no easy task,
believe me-in obtaining from Baron Pichon
the drawings for the 1767 Ovid, and in per-
suading Baron James de Rothschild to part
with his wonderful drawings by Gravelot,
Boucher and Eisen for the 1757 Boccaccio.
After Louis Roederer's death, not a volume
was added to his library and few connoisseurs
were ever granted leave to examine his books.
Nevertheless, the collection he made remained
famous and the sixth edition of Cohen's Guide
de l'amateur de livres à gravures du dix-huitième
siècle, published by me in 1912, contains a
fairly accurate description of most of the out-
standing items. Nevertheless, circumstances
prevented me from fully listing many features
of this carefully guarded collection, and the
arrival in America of this practically unknown
accumulation of unique art treasures is one
of the most singular and striking events in the
history of the book world.
A dramatic episode in the history of the
Roederer library was its removal from Reims
under shell-fire. With typical nonchalance, the
packing of the books was delayed until the
task became a dangerous one. It speaks highly
for the skill and care of French packers that
not one binding received a scratch, not one
drawing a blemish, in spite of the circum-
stances under which the library was transferred
to comparative safety in the Paris home of the
Olry-Roederer family. Of their stately house in
Reims, with the beautiful old oak-panelled
library, only blackened ruins now remain.
Lack of time prevents the compilation of a
worthy catalogue of the Roederer Library.
The following rough notes should enlighten
the casual reader as to the general character of
the library and some of its more obvious fea-
tures. The aims and methods of the collector
will thus become clearer to the inquisitive
visitor who, from the collection itself, seeks
to be brought into contact with the spirit of
the man who formed it.
THE DRAWINGS
Rich beyond belief as the various series in
the library may be, they would perhaps not
suffice to stamp as unique the Roederer collec-
tion. Other amateurs, such as Eugène Paillet,
were equally successful in collecting proofs and
etchings for book illustrations; others again,
such as the late Baron Ferdinand de Roths-
child, brought together fine series of these
celebrated French books in elaborate contem-
porary bindings. But the great outstanding
feature of the Roederer Library is that it con-
tains more original drawings for book illus-
trations of the French eighteenth century than
any other collection of the kind. No compari-
son can be made and not even by combining
any other two libraries would it be possible to
equal the vast assemblage of nearly three thou-
sand drawings brought together by Louis
Roederer.
Every artist of the eighteenth century is
represented, from Oudry to Moreau, and it may
be said without exaggeration that the greater
the artist, the more brilliant the representation.
Boucher's drawings are not common; his
book illustrations are among the scarcest of
the scarce-six of his best designs for the 1757
Boccaccio were obtained by Roederer, who also
owned a most exquisitely finished red chalk
series by Punt after Boucher for the excellent
Amsterdam edition of Molière, a set of unri-
valled beauty comparable only to the Moreau
set in the Pierpont Morgan Library.
Cochin, the most skillful portraitist of the
century and the masterful designer of innumer-
able ceremonies and processions, is very fully
illustrated by his eight drawings for the
Aminta of Tasso (1745), by the seven for Terence
(1770), the three for Lemierre, La Peinture
(1769), and by single drawings for the 1757
Boccaccio, the 1776 Télémaque, the 1780 Raynal,
the Fastes of Ovid (1783), etc. Better still, we
find here the magnificent copy of the 1775
French Ariosto from the Detienne, De Bure and
Garnier collections, with the set of 48 original
drawings (46 by Cochin and two by Moreau
le Jeune).
That Oudry, the famous designer of tapestry
cartoons and the greatest animal painter of his
century, should have undertaken to illustrate
La Fontaine's Fables is, in itself, a singular
piece of good fortune; that he should have
abandoned the usual minute scale of book-illus-
trators for a larger size, better suited to his
talent, is a hardly less felicitous happening.
That the well-known engravings of the 1755
La Fontaine should have been made, not from
the original drawings, but from tracings by
Cochin is another remarkable circumstance
which leaves to Oudry's drawings all the charm
of an undiscovered landscape. This extra-
ordinary series of 276 highly finished pictures
in black and white on blue paper, in a beautiful
old binding, was formerly in the De Bure,
Thibaudeau, Solar and Pereire collections.
The immortal illustrator of the Contes de
La Fontaine (1762), Charles Eisen, is one of the
French draughtsmen of whom it is the most
difficult to obtain really satisfactory specimens.
His delicate pencilwork, often on vellum, has
seldom withstood the injuries of time and of
human negligence. Even the celebrated draw-
ings for the Contes, preserved at Chantilly, are
in a condition which is far from perfect. Of
this, Louis Roederer was fully aware and he
was particularly keen in securing for his library
the finest Eisen drawings in existence. First
of all, he purchased from Baron Jérome Pichon
the wonderful series for the four-volume Ovid
of 1767-1771, formerly in the Renouard and
Thibaudeau collections, containing no less than
fifty-seven drawings by Eisen, in addition to
all those by Moreau, Monnet and Gravelot.
To these, he added the five drawings contrib-
uted by Eisen to the 1757 Boccaccio and the
four beautiful small drawings for Rousseau's
Emile (1762).
Leprince, the talented painter of Russian life
and customs, is better known by his oils than
by his drawings, a not surprizing circumstance
since practically all his scarce book illustra-
tions had been absorbed into the Roederer
library: the plate he contributed to the 1767
Ovid, the four exquisite illustrations to Saint-
Lambert's Saisons (1769), and above all the
wonderful series of drawings for Chappe d'
Auteroche's Voyage en Sibérie (1768), many of
the greatest beauty: the volume contains no
less than thirty-two drawings by Leprince,
seven by Moreau and fourteen by Caresme, a
combination of unrivalled interest, containing
the originals of several famous compositions.
popularized by innumerable reproductions.
Gravelot, by his long stay in England, and
by his numerous illustrations for English
books, will always have a particular appeal
for any English-speaking collector.
He is
better represented in the Roederer library than
in any other collection in the world. First of
all, we find his celebrated series for the 1757
Boccaccio, some hundred and thirty drawings
(not to speak of those by Eisen, Boucher, etc.
for the same work), partly obtained from
Baron James de Rothschild (who had secured
them from the Villot sale), partly from the
Mahérault collection. From the same Mahérault
library, Roederer bought four charming draw-
ings for Tom Jones (1750), to which he added
on his shelves the six drawings for the Partie
de chasse de Henri IV (from the La Bedoyère,
Capé and Gautier collections), the seven draw-
ings for the 1767 Ovid, the drawings for the
1768 Tibère and several others.
But what confers a unique character to
Gravelot's representation in the Roederer
library is the presence of the artist's own port-
folio, preserved intact with nearly a thousand
sketches for practically all his book illustrations.
The late Emmanuel Bocher had obtained this
priceless series from the Marquis de Fourque-
vaulx and Roederer finally induced him to part
with it. It includes all the first sketches for
such celebrated books as Gay's Fables (1727-
1738), the 1757 Boccaccio, the Partie de chasse
de Henri IV, the famous 1764 Corneille, Mar-
montel's Lucan (1776), the 1768 Oeuvres de
Voltaire, the 1768 Racine, the 1771 Tasso, the
Lucrèce, the Pucelle, the Nouvelle Héloïse, and
gives us a unique opportunity to study the
progress of the artist's work at every stage of
his adventurous career.
Greater still than Gravelot was his wonder-
fully gifted continuator Moreau le Jeune, the
most remarkable book-illustrator of the whole
eighteenth century. The series of his drawings
in the Roederer library is the most extensive
and the most comprehensive in existence. Louis
Roederer admired Moreau above all artists and
made tremendous efforts to secure every exam-
ple from his hand which could be obtained at
any price. The result is stupendous and it seems
incredible that in half a dozen years any collec-
tor should have succeeded in bringing together
such an extraordinary accumulation of his
miniature masterpieces.
The life-work of the artist is there, from the
free and sketchy designs of his youth to the
minutely beautiful miniatures of his older age,
illustrating every aspect of his genius, the
unlimited range of his invention, the lightness
of his touch and the almost incredible skill
of his technique.
The twenty-six drawings for the 1767 Ovid
and the seven drawings for the Voyage en
Sibérie (1768) have already been mentioned;
together with a few selected drawings for the
Baskerville Ariosto (1773), they represent
Moreau's earliest and most spontaneous efforts.
The crowning masterpiece of the artist's
life is undoubtedly the series of twenty-four
illustrations for the world-famous Monument
du Costume. Louis Roederer was fortunate
enough to secure two matchless drawings for
that celebrated series: Madame Guillotin seated
as represented in Oui ou Non, and Madame
Moreau standing, as portrayed in La Petite
Loge. The technique is of singular perfection
and the combination of black, white and red
crayon, with the latter tone predominating,
has been made use of with consummate skill
and remarkable success. No more felicitous
examples from Moreau's hand exist in any col-
lection public or private.
We next find the 1780 Raynal, in a sumptu-
ous contemporary morocco binding with the
five celebrated drawings by Moreau and Cochin
representing the natives of America as seen by
the French artist of the eighteenth century;
the sumptuous 1780 Metastasio with eight fine
designs by Moreau (not to mention those by
Cochin and Cipriani), one of the most hand-
somely illustrated books of the eighteenth cen-
tury, the eight delightful sepias for the Lettres
d'Héloïse (1796), the most successful example
of Moreau's full-blown genius, the two sepias
for the Marcus Aurelius of 1800, the six Moreau
and the ten Monnet for the Comte de Valmont
(1807), six beautiful drawings for Boileau
(with two portraits by the famous Augustin
de Saint-Aubin), twelve no less exquisite
compositions for Racine (the gem of the
Mahérault collection), twelve for the Nouvelle
Héloïse and a great many others, too numerous
to be listed here in detail. Most of these come
from the Renouard and La Bedoyère collections.
A series of a hundred and sixteen drawings
by Moreau, Lebarbier and Monsiau for the 1806
Ovid, formerly in the Pourtalès collection, also
deserves a special mention.
Hardly less gifted than Moreau was his
rival Marillier, a great master of minute design
and small-size groups of figures. The Roederer
Library contains three beautiful series by his
hand: sixty-seven drawings (eleven unpub-
lished) for Ponce, Les illustres Français, from
the Renouard and Behague collections with
a complete set of the etchings, twelve for the
1797 Gil Blas and the artist's masterpiece, the
three hundred illustrations by himself and by
Monsiau for the 1789 Bible, a most brilliant
and highly finished set, from the collections of
Detienne, La Bedoyère, Montgermont and the
Comte de Sauvage. Nothing is more worthy of
admiration than the persistent freshness of
invention and execution throughout this exten-
sive series, a parallel to which it would be no
easy task to discover in any collection.
Lebarbier's classical and refined drawings.
were greatly appreciated by the French public
during the last thirty years of the eighteenth
century. He is very fully illustrated in the
Roederer library by the forty-one drawings for
the Fastes of Ovid (1783), from the La Bedoyère
and Gautier sales, in their handsome old red
morocco bindings, by the two drawings for the
Chansons de Piis (1785), by eight beautiful com-
positions for Daphnis et Chloè, by the four draw-
ings for Thomson's Seasons (1795) from the
La Bedoyère and Huillard sales, by the draw-
ings for the 1796 Racine (Duriez, Hanrott,
Morris and Portalis collections) and by the
eight exquisite designs for the Lettres d'une
Péruvienne (1797), formerly belonging to Comte
de La Bedoyère and to L. de Mongermont, in a
charming contemporary binding by Courteval.
Other series of drawings by various artists
include Coiny's eighteen delicate compositions
for Renouard's Psyches et Cupidinis Amores (1796),
an extremely scarce little book of which no
copy has come on the market for the last forty
years; a series of eighteen drawings by Debu-
court, the scarcest of all French draughtsmen,
as nearly all his drawings have been destroyed;
the eighteen drawings by Huet for the 1806
Virgil, practically the only set of book illus-
trations by that artist existing in any collec-
tion; fifty superb drawings by Monnet and
Lepicié for the Figures de l'Histoire de France;
four charming illustrations by Queverdo for
Sedaine's Déserteur (1770) and a large number of
other drawings by celebrated French book
illustrators of the whole of the eighteenth
century.
There remains to be described a collection of
drawings of such a singular importance that
they cannot be bracketed with any other series
in this great library.
In the whole of the French eighteenth cen-
tury, no name calls to our mind more brilliant
memories than that of Fragonard, no artist
more aptly impersonates the whole life and
spirit of his day, no painter was more spon-
taneously human and lovable. For the last two
generations, collectors of all countries have
eagerly gathered every scrap of paper from his
pen, and nearly every drawing from his hand
has been reproduced and discussed by art-
historians.
As a book-illustrator, Fragonard was little
known in his own days. His drawings for the
Contes de La Fontaine (1795) were never com-
pleted and seem to have attracted little atten-
tion when they came out, during the most
agitated days of the French Revolution. As for
his wonderful series for Ariosto, the painter's
most ambitious and most successful effort as an
illustrator, it has remained unknown and
unpublished to the present day, save for notices
by his biographer, the late Baron Portalis.
As stated above, Louis Roederer secured two
or three drawings for the 1795 Contes; what
must have been his joy when, at the Walferdin
sale (and Walferdin had obtained them straight
from Fragonard's family), he purchased no less
than one hundred and thirty-six astonishing
drawings by Fragonard for Ariosto's Orlando
Furioso. Nor are these by any means meagre
and insignificant sketches; each of these draw-
ings is a picture in itself, dashed off with
incredible brilliancy on a large folio sheet,
heightened with touches of bistre and sepia by
a man who with three dabs of his brush could
create light and movement. To turn over these
leaves is a great lesson in invention in composi-
tion, in execution, and it is hardly to be believed
that a series so important for the history of
French art should have ever been allowed to
leave the artist's native land.
THE BINDINGS
So far, this account has mainly been con-
cerned with drawings; but after all, in a library
the really important feature is the bookshelf.
Louis Roederer was not only the enthusiastic
appreciator of drawings and engravings, but
above all a keen lover of beautiful books.
Modern collectors have long discussed the
respective merits of uncut copies in solander
cases or in modern bindings, compared with
copies in the original morocco bindings with
or without dentelle, with or without armorial
bearings. Roederer solved the problem in his
own way by obtaining the books whenever
possible, in both states: the copies in full
levant by Trautz-Bauzonnet or Capé usually
contain the proofs and etchings; those in old
bindings are all in the finest obtainable condi-
tion, in magnificent state, often with the arms
of some exalted personage.
The 1718 Boileau and the 1732 Ovid bear the
three towers of Madame de Pompadour; like-
wise the stately folio of the Galerie de Versailles
(1752), with a broad dentelle by the elder
Derôme and the Pompadour arms stamped in
silver; the 1755 La Fontaine Fables, of which no
finer copy is known, is in a sumptuous dentelle
binding with the Montmorency-Luxembourg
arms; Moreau's Bibliothèque de la Dauphine,
the catalogue of Marie Antoinette's library,
with her portrait on the frontispiece, is the
Dauphin's (afterwards King Louis XVI) own
copy, an association volume of extraordinary in-
terest; the same arms adorn the beautiful copy
of the 1774 Agriculture; Marmontel's Chefs d'
oeuvre dramatiques (1773), belonged to King
George III, his Contes moraux (1765) to Maure-
pas, the Exercice de l'Infanterie (1757) to the
Comte d'Artois, afterwards King Charles X,
and a charming little Bossuet bears the emblems
of Longepierre. A liturgical book from Plan-
tin's press (1573) is a strikingly handsome
example from De Thou's library and the finest
early binding in the Roederer collection.
For over a century, old French mosaic bind-
ings have been considered by book-collectors
as the choicest prize they could secure. In spite
of the competition of such great enthusiasts
as Baron de Lacarelle or James de Rothschild,
Roederer succeeded in obtaining several strik-
ingly beautiful examples of these wonderful
inlays. The series opens with the 1728 Henriade
in a remarkable mosaic binding, strongly
reminiscent of the seventeenth century style,
formerly in the Hangard, Radziwill and
Montgermont collections. The Pine Horace
(1733), equal in beauty to the celebrated Dutuit
copy, is a well-known example of Derôme's
skill, from the famous libraries of Lauraguais-
Brancas, Clos, Duparc, Pieters and Robert S.
Turner.
More beautiful still is the matchless Temple
de Gnide (1772), once the gem of the De Bure
collection and a magnificent example of design
and tooling.
To obtain possession of the finest copy of the
most celebrated book of the eighteenth century,
must have been the greatest satisfaction of
Roederer's career as a collector. The Fermiers
Généraux edition of La Fontaine's Contes has
long enjoyed the deserved reputation of being
the finest book of its kind and the Roederer
copy, for a century and a half, has been known
as the most beautifully bound example of the
book. We follow it from sale to sale, ever since
it was bound by Derôme for the Fermier-
Général Bonnemet, one of the original patrons
of the edition, through the hands of the Duc
de La Vallière, Naigeon, Didot, La Bedoyère,
Brunet, Fontaine, Henri Bordes and E. L.
Benzon.
The citron morocco binding, with a green
and red mosaic of flowers and fruit, is of a most
tasteful design and in faultless condition, the
colours being as fresh as when the book left
Derôme's hands. Each side of each volume is
decorated with a different pattern and the tool-
ing is of unsurpassed elegance and accuracy. I
have little hesitation in claiming it to be one
of the most desirable treasures that ever graced
a book-collector's shelves.
* *
After items of such outstanding importance,
it may seem futile to draw attention to the
standard works of the eighteenth century in
their beautiful contemporary morocco bind-
ings. And yet it would be unfair to pass in
silence great examples of bookbinding like the
luxuriant dentelles on the 1775 Berquin, the
splendid 1728 Fontenelle, the equally magnif-
icent 1733 Regnier, the Eloge de la Folie (1751),
the Longus of 1718, the 1754 Lucretius, and the
beautiful reliure de présent on one of the copies
of the Fermiers Généraux La Fontaine (1762).
Many of the less gorgeously decorated bind-
ings are also worthy of the greatest attention:
what other collection could show on the same
shelf, in bindings by Derôme with his charac-
teristic little bird, such standard works as
Dorat's Baisers, Dorat's Fables and the Chansons
of La Borde, the latter with the famous and
extremely scarce portrait of La Borde's expect-
ant wife?
PROOFS AND ETCHINGS
For a print lover like Roederer, these magnif-
icent copies in their sumptuous contemporary
bindings had a great drawback. They nearly
always contained the illustrations in the pub-
lished state. The trial proofs and etchings
remained in the print-collectors' portfolios and
until about 1810 were very seldom bound into
the books. During the whole of the nineteenth
century the few stray examples of these trial
pieces were carefully picked up by collectors
like Renouard or La Bedoyère or enthusiastic
dealers like Vignères or Sieurin and gradually
inserted into fine uncut copies of the books for
which they were engraved. These were then
bound by the great French artists of the day,
from Bozérian and Simier to Trautz-Bauzonnet
and Cuzin, and the combination thus obtained
of a perfect copy of the book, the scarcest
variations of the prints and the handsomest
obtainable binding produced volumes of the
most attractive nature.
At the beginning of his career as a biblio-
phile, Louis Roederer was fortunate enough to
secure some of the finest examples of the kind
when he purchased the Léon Mercier collec-
tion. Mercier, not unlike his contemporary
Eugène Paillet, was apt to consider French
book-illustrations, above all other things, as
masterpieces of the engraver's art. And, as
every print lover would have done, he revelled
in the joy of full uncut margins, of proofs
before letters or before certain variations, and
in the costly privilege of gathering trial-proofs
and eaux-fortes.
All his copies were beautifully bound by
Trautz-Bauzonnet and the other masters of the
day and by buying the Mercier library Louis
Roederer secured a solid foundation for the
great building he was striving to erect.
Characteristic of these books is the copy of
the Contes de La Fontaine (1762), the famous
Fermiers Généraux edition with all the tail-
pieces in separate impressions (tirages hors texte),
or the 1795 edition of the same tales with
Fragonard's beautiful illustrations in various
states, including a few of the original drawings.
Carrying on Mercier's pursuits in this partic-
ular line, Louis Roederer added greatly to his
predecessor's store of rarities and we now find
in the library practically all the famous sets
of trial proofs.
Side by side with the celebrated Sieurin copy
of the 1795 Contes, the finest in existence, we
find the scarce and beautiful etchings for the
1734 Molière (the only other sets on record are
in the Bibliothèque Nationale and the Roths-
child collection), all the tirages hors texte for
Dorat's Fables and the far scarcer Baisers, most
of the eaux-fortes for such celebrated books as
the 1773 Molière or the Chansons de La Borde,
the hors texte of the Anacreon, Gravelot's
Iconologie before all letters, the "introuvable
trial-proofs for the 1757 Boccaccio, the etch-
ings for the Liaisons dangereuses, for Faublas
and for the whole of the dainty little Bleuet
collection; last but not least, the famous
La Bedoyère and Montgermont copy of Buffon's
works in fifty-six volumes, the most sumptuous
on record, with the unique set of plates before
letters, of coloured engravings and other valu-
able illustrations. Roederer also owned a
matchless copy of the 1773 Anacreon, in an old
citron morocco binding, with contrepreuves of
all the illustrations, beautifully coloured by
hand.
Roederer had also collected fine copies of
the great "Fêtes" and other ceremonies in
their sumptuous old morocco bindings and of
the celebrated series of plates on architecture,
gardening, ornament, interior decoration, fur-
niture, the goldsmiths' craft, so valuable for
the knowledge of French art of the eighteenth
century and so seldom met with in really fine
condition.
THE PRINTS
Nor are the books and drawings the whole of
the library: Louis Roederer was also an
enlightened appreciator of earlier art, as we
can see from the large portfolios of engraved
portraits, from a fine set of Dürer wood cuts.
and from a wonderful Italian miniature of the
fifteenth century, Pope Sixtus IV receiving the
homage of a book from the founder of Paris
typography, the kneeling Guillaume Fichet,
the gem of the former Payne collection and
a masterpiece of the illuminator's art, closely
related to the celebrated fresco by Melozzo
da Forli in the Vatican Museum.
The print collection forms a valuable addi-
tion to the library and completes in a remark-
able way the representation of a number of the
greatest French draughtsmen and engravers.
Prints after Chardin are all scarce and have
always been much sought for by French col-
lectors; here we have perhaps the only set on
record which has come down to us in an old
binding.
Particularly characteristic of the eighteenth-
century French engraver at his best are the
beautiful compositions of contemporary life
by Baudouin and Lavreince. Of most of these
plates, trial-proofs and etchings are in existence
and count among the choicest treasures of the
French iconophile. Of late years, extremely
few have come on the market and of several
only two or three copies are known to exist.
The extensive series of these etchings and trial-
proofs in the Louis Roederer collection bears.
testimony both to his taste and knowledge
and to his unusual foresight in securing prints
today unobtainable at any price.
The ''œuvre" of Baudouin is not very exten-
sive and the set in the Roederer collection is
practically complete. All his famous plates
are here, several in the scarcest states, from
the famous Four Hours of the Day (Le Matin,
Le Midi, Le Soir, La Nuit) to the even more
famous Couché de la Mariée, so skilfully engraved
by Moreau le Jeune and Simonet. He had three
variations of Rose et Colas, two of the Soins
Tardifs, of the Sentinelle en Défaut and of the
Epouse Indiscrète.
Other dainty and celebrated compositions.
are the Jardinier Galant, the Fruit de l'Amour
Secret, the Modèle honnête and the Baigneuses,
in which Baudouin shows himself the worthy
disciple of Boucher, the great painter of
Nymphs and Naiads.
Not less brilliantly represented are Fragonard
with proof impressions of his most celebrated
plates (Les Beignets, Dites donc s'il vous plaît,
L'Heureuse Fécondité, Le Chiffre d'Amour, etc.),
and Moreau le Jeune, Roederer's idol, with
some of his scarcest etchings such as the
Revue de la Plaine des Sablons, the Sacre de
Louis XVI and the various states of the Cou-
ronnement de Voltaire.
Of all series of plates of the French eight-
eenth century, none is more generally and
more deservedly famous than the Monument du
Costume, with the twelve plates by Freudeberg
for the first volume (here present in several
sets, one being in the original old red morocco),
and the twenty-four by Moreau for the second
and third. Nothing is scarcer than the etchings
and the proofs before letters for these delightful
compositions and, for the last thirty years,
hardly any single impressions (not to speak of
sets) have come into the auction-room. Only
two sets of these trial pieces were known to be
in existence, one in a great Parisian collection
and the other acquired a few years ago by an
American amateur. The discovery in the Roed-
erer Library of a similar collection of trial
plates for the Monument du Costume will be
greeted by all iconophiles as an event of the
first importance.
These rarities are accompanied by a very
fine and extensive series of French engraved
portraits of the seventeenth and of the eight-
eenth century, beginning with superb exam-
ples of Masson and Edelinck, two large port-
folios of portraits by Robert Nanteuil, with all
his great engravings in the scarcest states, and
a stately array of Drevet's portraits of cele-
brated Frenchmen.
The nineteenth century is represented by a
few selected items, such as some excellent bind-
ings by Marius-Michel and other great artists,
a most beautiful series of sixteen water-colours
by Eugène Lami, the great exponent of Parisian
life under the third Napoleon, and by a very
extensive and remarkable oeuvre of Gavarni,
with nearly every known variation of
every plate, probably the largest collection of
Gavarni lithographs ever brought together.
* * *
That such a collection should have left
France for the United States is a remarkable
evidence of American catholicity and a homage
of modern taste to the century of Voltaire and
Rousseau, of Boucher and Fragonard, of Hou-
don and Pajou, of Mademoiselle Clairon and
of Madame de Pompadour.
SEYMOUR DE RICCI
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
3 9015 03360 8954