[INVALIDES - LE JEUNE DE BOULENCOURT] ; MAROT (Jean).

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  3. [INVALIDES - LE JEUNE DE BOULENCOURT] ; MAROT (Jean).
  4. Lot n° 229 
Lot n° 229
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[INVALIDES - LE JEUNE DE BOULENCOURT] ; MAROT (Jean).
General description of the Hostel Royal des Invalides established by Louis the Great in the Plaine de Grenelle near Paris, with plans, profiles and elevations of its faces, sections and apartments. Paris : chez l'auteur, imprimerie de Gabriel Martin, 1683. In-folio, frontispiece, (8)-51 pages and 18 plates on double page. 19th century marbled basane in imitation, spine ribbed and decorated, lace on the edges and around the back covers. First edition of the most beautiful architectural book dedicated to the Invalides, illustrated with a frontispiece and 18 plates engraved in intaglio mainly by Jean Marot. The Description des Invalides had been undertaken by the sieur de La Porte, commissioner of the Invalides, who had had the plans, sections and elevations of the building engraved by Jean Marot and Lepautre, with explanations, by order of Louvois and at his expense. Five hundred copies were printed but the commissioner died before he could begin distribution. His heirs sold the plates and prints to Le Jeune de Boulencourt, who added a dedication signed with his initials (see Duplessis, p. 13). "The order to Jean Marot for the engraved plates of the new building had been placed in 1677, according to the accounts of the establishment (SHAT, IXy 18, account of 1677, f° 110). [...] However, of the eighteen plates in the collection, five are not by Marot. It seems probable that the death of the engraver in 1679 interrupted the realization. The hypothesis seems to be confirmed by the privilege granted on May 6, 1683 to Le Jeune de Boulencourt [...]. In any case, Boulencourt took up the project again and completed it by publishing in 1683 his Description générale de l'hôtel des Invalides établi par Louis le Grand dans la plaine de Grenelle près Paris avec les plans, profils et élévation de ses faces, coupes et appartements, which was based on the engravings of Jean Marot and three others commissioned to Daniel Marot, Jean and Pierre Le Pautre. The date might also suggest that Boulencourt had not waited for the royal approval to have the missing engravings made. As Bertrand Jestaz has recently pointed out, Marot's plates render the project with infinite precision, which seems to indicate that they were executed from the architect's own drawings and on the spot. They include plans (pl. 1 to 7) and elevations and profiles (pl. 10 to 17). Pierre Le Pautre provides a perspective view of the general elevation of the Hôtel, Daniel Marot gives a second one and Jean Le Pautre, an engraving of the Réfectoire des Invalides".Berlin Kat. n° 2476; Brunet IV, 486; B. Jestaz, L'Hotel et l'eglise des Invalides (1990); B. Jestaz, Jules Hardouin-Mansart, Paris, 2008; G. Duplessis, "Le Cabinet du Roi", Le Bibliophile français, 1869; K. Deutsch, Jean Marot, un graveur d'architecture à l'époque de Louis XIV, Berlin, 2015. (First spine box torn off, second hinge split at foot, corners dull; wetness in upper corners of last three plates).
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