[BENSERADE, Isaac de]. - Lot 92

[BENSERADE, Isaac de]. Ovid’s *Metamorphoses* in Rondeaux. Paris: Royal Printing Office, Mabre Cramoisy, 1676. In-4, (7) ff., 463 pp., (4) ff., illustrations. 19th-century imitation speckled fawn calfskin, decorated ribbed spine, fawn title and date labels, compartments decorated with small ironwork and gilt fillets, triple gilt fillet framing the covers with angular fleurons, gilt roulette on the edges, red edges (ribs, edges, and corners rubbed, mouthpiece very slightly split). First edition of Isaac de Benserade’s poems based on Ovid’s *Metamorphoses*, rendered in French rondeaux. A very fine edition illustrated with a magnificent title-frontispiece engraved by Sébastien Leclerc after a drawing by Charles Le Brun, and numerous in-text vignettes drawn and then engraved in black on copper by Chauveau, Leclerc, or Le Pautre (signatures within the images for several). Beautiful proofs. Dedicated to the Dauphin, Louis of France, it was very expensive for the time and is said to have been commissioned in part due to the Sun King’s fleeting passion for Madame de Ludre, a canoness of Poussay and a friend of the author (the text includes one dedicated rondeau and evocative acrostics). This copy is enhanced by an original drawing, finely executed in pen and ink wash (unsigned), which served as the model for the engraving on page 18; it is mounted here opposite the frontispiece. An old handwritten note in pencil on the flyleaf of the bookplate indicates that one of the book’s former owners possessed three original drawings by Chauveau for the engravings. Provenance: The collection of Emmanuel Martin, including a beautiful 19th-century engraved bookplate with a motto (see *Livres anciens illustrés par les plus grands artistes des 18e et 19e*, published in 1877)—an old engraved bookplate bearing a monogram (19th century). *Beauté des épreuves*, Backer-Sommervogel, II, 1482 and V, 1518. Brunet, IV, 18. Tchemerzine, I, 614.