GAVARNI. MÉRY (Joseph). FOELIX (Count). Pearls and Sets. Les - Lot 185

GAVARNI. MÉRY (Joseph). FOELIX (Count). Pearls and Sets. Les Joyaux. Fantasy by Gavarni. Text by Méry. [Followed by]: Minéralogie des dames by Cte Foelix. [With]: Les Parures. Fantasy by Gavarni; text by Méry [Followed by]: Histoire de la mode by Cte Foelix. Paris, G. de Gonet, Martinon, Vve Janet, Leipzig, Twietmeyer, [1850]. 2 volumes in-4, [4]-300 pp. with 32 plates (including frontispiece) and [4], 316 pp. with 34 plates (including frontispiece), with color highlights, wide margins. cover preserved in red on white and illustrated subscription slip on blue paper. Navy half-maroquin with corners, spines decorated with gilt fleurons and romantic plates, gilt filets and roulettes, gilt heads, cover and spine preserved, 1 delivery cover preserved in each volume. Beautiful morocco signed H. Blanchetière, in the taste of the period. First printing of Gavarni's lovely Fantaisie, with frontispieces and plates in double state.The illustration consists of a frontispiece repeated in each volume in two states (in black and on chine appliqué) and 31 hors-texte plates (15+16) engraved on steel by Geoffroy after Gavarni, colored on wove paper in canivet (in beautiful lace-cut frames with the title), mounted on ochre paper, and a suite of these 31 engravings in black on chine. A deluxe copy, the only one with the canivets. Some foxing, two small tears in one spine, one lower jaw cracked, some rubbing, but a good copy.