1773 ❧ DORAT, CLAUDE-JOSEPH (1734-1780). Fables Nouvelles. La Haye [The Hague] et se trouve à Paris: Chez Delalain, 1773. 2 volumes, octavo (235 x 145 mm). With 2 engraved title-pages, 1 title-page vignette, 1 engraved frontispiece to Volume I, 99 exquisite headpiece vignettes, and 99 tailpieces (culs-de-lampe) designed by Clément-Pierre Marillier and engraved by de Ghendt, de Launay, Ponce, and others. Occasional light marginal stains or minor spots, a light dampstain to the top edge of a few leaves, leaf Z4 with a long vertical crease, but an extraordinarily crisp, tall, uncut copy. Original green paper-covered boards, spines with original burgundy morocco lettering pieces, volume numerals stamped in gold, edges completely untrimmed and deckled. Housed in a protective custom green folding case. Extremities slightly worn, typical light rubbing to the paper joints and spine tips. Provenance: Peter A. Wick (1920-2004), distinguished Boston print curator (MFA Boston) and Harvard bibliophile (Houghton Library), characteristic black shield-shaped 'P.A.W.' bookplate to the lower front pastedown of Volume I. David O'Neal Antiquarian Books, Boston (acquired by the following from him in 1991). Arthur & Charlotte Vershbow, legendary Boston rare print and book collectors (bookplate, sold Christie's New York, April 2013, lot 489). FIRST EDITION, second issue, an exceptional large-paper copy in the original publisher's boards. Printed on premium papier de Hollande, with completely untrimmed edges, making this copy significantly larger than standard recorded examples. Claude-Joseph Dorat's Fables Nouvelles represents the absolute artistic zenith of French Rococo book design. Dorat famously praised the designer Clément-Pierre Marillier for his unmatched ability to depict the 'infinitely small' in nature, rendering him the ideal collaborator to illustrate these verses populated by tiny snails, grasshoppers, flies, and delicate domestic vignettes. According to Ray, the 'large copy on Holland paper with brilliant impressions of the vignettes is much more desirable than [a] smaller copy' (p.83). More importantly, while most luxury copies were promptly bound in full morocco by contemporary workshops, this copy survives in its original green paper boards. Left entirely uncut by the binder, it stands at an impressive 235 x 150mm-dwarfing standard copies and beautifully showcasing the raw deckle of the prized papier de Hollande stock. . Cohen-de Ricci 313-316; Ray,French, 43; Fürstenberg 69; Rochambeau, Fables, p. 520. For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com For further information about this lot please visit the lot listing