Description

ORIGINAL EDITION and FULL COLLECTION  of the 12 issues published from 1859 to 1875 and limited to 200 copies. Complete with 46 etchings engraved by Jules or Edmond de Goncourt and printed by A. Delatre; all the plates were erased after the print run.

The issue on Chardin includes a signed autograph letter from Jules de Goncourt:

"to Mr Théophile Gautier
his very humble friends
E and J de Goncourt

The latest issue, Notules & Additions, includes an autograph signed letter from Edmond de Goncourt:

"to my friend Roger Marx
Edmond de Goncourt"

This is also the only issue to appear after Jules's death on 20 June 1870. It also contains a preface announcing the end of the project:

"This book was begun by two brothers in the years of their youth and good health, with the confidence of bringing it to an end. For a whole month, every year after the melancholy studies of contemporary life, it was the work in which their taste and their past were recreated, as if on a happy holiday. And there was an emulation between the two of them, to define in a sentence, to make a word say the full meaning of the word. "that" inexpressible pleasure that lies in an object of art. It was their favourite book, the book that had given them the most trouble. […] two years could not be given to the collaboration of the two brothers. The younger brother is dead. The older brother doesn't feel brave enough - and why wouldn't he say so - to write the two studies that are missing from the book, all by himself. […]"

A charming copy in a full modern Japanese binding on antique paper, in a perfect case. "à la Goncourt". The two brothers are considered to be the originators of this type of binding.

Rare collection complete with consignment from each of the Goncourt brothers to two literary and artistic figures of the late nineteenth century.

The 12-issue collection is as follows

• Les Saint-Aubin, 1859, four unpublished etched portraits,
• Watteau, 1860, followed by the unpublished Life of Watteau by Count Caylus, four etched drawings,
• Prudhon, 1861, four etched drawings
• Boucher, 1862, four etched drawings
• Greuze, 1863, four etched drawings
• Chardin, 1864, four etched drawings
• Fragonnard, 1865, four etched drawings
• Debucourt, 1866, two etched drawings
• La Tour, 1867, four etched drawings
• The vignettists : Gravelot - Cochin, 1868, two etched drawings
• The vignettists : Eisen - Moreau, 1870, two etched drawings
• Notules, Additions - Errata, preceded by the title and preface of the book, 1875, four etchings