BALZAC (Jean-Louis Guez de)

Lot 39
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Estimation :
1000 - 1500 EUR
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Result : 1 191EUR
BALZAC (Jean-Louis Guez de)
The Miscellaneous Works. Augmented in this edition with several new Pieces. Leiden, Elzevier, 1651. Small in-12 (130 x 70 mm), 8 ff.n.ch. and 389 pp.: red morocco, triple gilt fillet, crowned numeral repeated at the corners, spine decorated with the same numeral, fawn title coin, inner wheel, gilt edges on marbling (contemporary binding). First Elzevirian edition. A copy in morocco bound by Boyet for the R. P. Le Roy, a mysterious bibliophile whose name is stamped in gilt letters in the lining and whose crowned figure, composed of the initials ALR, is repeated in the corners and on the spine. The identity of this collector is an enigma. The question asked one hundred and fifty years earlier by Potier and Labitte, in the catalogue of the sale of the bookseller Jacques-Charles Brunet (cf. cat. I, 1868, no. 184), about this provenance, is still unanswered: "Who was this P. Le Roy, whose beautifully bound books are sometimes found and who put a marquis' crown on his number? Was he a great lord withdrawn from the world, and who, under this modest name, hid a more illustrious name?" Could this character finally be classified among this group of famous Parisian curious people whose books were also bound in Boyet's or his gilder's workshop? Raccomoding with L6 and L7 sheets, uniform freckles. (Tchemerzine I, p. 426.- Willems, nº 688.)
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