[Costume]. BAR (Jacques-Charles). Recueil de tous les costum - Lot 64

[Costume]. BAR (Jacques-Charles). Recueil de tous les costumes des ordres religieux et militaires avec un abrégé historique et chronologique. Paris, chez l'auteur, 1778-1789 [i.e. after 1793]. 6 volumes in-folio, fawn half-basane with corners, spines with 5 flat bands, author, title, tomaison and date gilt, untrimmed. [J. Bettenfeld] (rubbing, wear to corners and headpieces, vols. 5 and 6 disbound, one spine detached; qq. rare leaves with very light wetness). Exceptional and unique copy of this work illustrated with over 600 costume plates. It contains almost all these figures in two states, one in black and the other colored, as well as over 1,000 original drawings, with numerous annotations in the artist's hand. It also contains a handwritten version of his dedication to Jérôme Frédéric Bignon, the king's librarian, one page in-4, enriched with Bignon's autograph acceptance of the dedication. This exceptional set seems to correspond to the one quoted by Cohen: "A copy enriched with the author's original drawings and autograph notes was sold for 895 Fr. around 1850 at Techener". We don't know what it looked like at the time, but we now find it in a 20th-century binding, with all its margins preserved (h = 42.5 cm. excluding binding). The illustration consists of 610 copper-engraved plates. This copy contains 581 of these plates colored, including one on vellum folio, and a further 539 in black, or colored or heightened in wash. Each of the 610 required plates is thus present at least once. In addition, 63 plates are simply engraved. Finally, at the end of vol.5 are the 48 figures engraved on 12 plates of "Mascarades politiques et religieuses", based on an Italian work published in 1793. A total of 1195 engraved plates. In addition, there are 1,046 original drawings in pencil or ink, some enhanced with wash or color, including 5 painted in color on vellum sheets. Most of these drawings include handwritten comments by the author. Text not collated, full collation details on request. (Brunet IV, 1071; Colas 72; Lipperheide 1848, exact collation; Cohen 111, incorrect collation).