Essais de Gravure pour servir à une Histoire de la Gravure en Bois.

Paris: imprimerie et fonderie de Jules Didot l'Ainé,, 1833. Letterpress title-page and 24 leaves printed on rectos with 70 woodcuts, interleaved with blanks and tissue guards, the majority engraved by Laborde after his own designs and those of Jarvis, Sceffer, Arnoult, Adam, and Tellier, the other engravers include Thompson, Williams, Porret, Sophie, Sears, Branston and Slader. 8vo. [book 23 x 15 cm; binding 25.8 x 17.5 cm], contemporary French binding by Coremat (signed in gilt at foot of spine) in half red goatskin, marbled paper sides, smooth spine lettered in gilt with arabesque compartments, marbled endleaves, untrimmed edges. Corners slightly bumped, occasional light spotting and a little dust soiling but the volume is in excellent condition. There is an early engraved label of a donkey at the front and a blindstamp of "T.W." of Neatham Mill on the rear flyleaf. ||Bound in with Laborde’s work are an additional 40 watermarked leaves with tissue guards, each mounted with a woodcut of a biblical scene after Richard Westall, engraved by Landells, Slader, Nesbit, Gray, Bagg, Smith, Williams, Thompson, Branston, Mosses, Jackson, Powis,Guy and Baxter.
Laborde's Essais De Gravure is rare. The work was a preliminary attempt at a history of engraving, and was abandoned before the essays, leaving only the title and woodcuts. Laborde returned to the subject in Histoire de la Gravure en Manière Noire, published in 1839, and Recherches sur la Découverte de l'Imprimerie, 1840.
In 1827 Leon de Laborde (1807-1869) travelled with his father through Southern Europe and Asia Minor, drawing the ancient monuments, which he reproduced on wood for this work. After a spell as a diplomat and politician he devoted himself to the study and reorganisation of the national monuments, archives, libraries and museums, acting as a curator at the Louvre and serving for 11 years as Director General of the Archives of the Empire. Besides printing histories, his publications covered travel, art, architecture, industry and taste.|Only 5 copies on OCLC, 2 in France at the Bibliothèque Nationale and the Paris Institute, 2 in the US at Harvard and The Grolier Club and one in the UK in Cambridge University Library. The only published part of Laborde’s intended history of wood engraving including dozens of his own engravings, bound with a collection of British wood engravings