Choix de Chansons

Choix de Chansons compiled by Jean-Benjamin de Laborde J. Lemonnyer Bookseller in Rouen, 1881, Quarto, 2 ff + 150 + (3) pages. Volumes 3 & 4 of the reprint on Vergé paper of the superb 1773 edition of a selection of songs with scores by Jean Benjamin de Laborde (1734-1794) familiar with Louis XV and the Du Barry. For Volume 1, De Laborde had begun the illustrations with Jean-Michel Moreau (1741-1814), but he collaborated with Le Bouteux, Le Barbier and Saint-Quentin for the other 3 volumes. In addition to the front cover and the title page, there is a frontispiece in this volume (bound after the title page), and 25 intaglio engravings by Le Bouteux, Le Barbier and Saint-Quentin. Condition: The two books were clearly damaged in a fire. The boards are in poor condition, and the edges are singed. There is some staining around the margins of some of the pages- more in Vol. 3 than Vol. 4. - but many other pages show little or no damage. Please see the photos... About the books: "One of the most remarkable publications of the later eighteenth century is the four-volume Choix de chansons compiled by Jean-Benjamin de Laborde (1734–1794), fermier général and premier valet du chambre to Louis XV. Published in 1773 and dedicated to the Dauphine, Marie Antoinette, this deluxe set is a multi-authored collection of music, text, and image. Like many other recueils (or collections) of chansons from the period, it features hand-engraved musical scores for voice with accompaniment together with the printed text of strophic verses from the pens of ancient and modern poets. What makes Laborde's publication so unique... is that each chanson also receives an elaborate engraving that either depicts a key moment of the narrative or encapsulates or symbolizes the predominant theme of the poem. The verses set by Laborde are by a variety of French poets, whose subjects provide an extraordinarily wide panorama of eighteenth-century life. Laborde commissioned the celebrated printmaker, Jean-Michel Moreau (1741–1814), known as Moreau le Jeune, to inaugurate the project. But Moreau contributed only twenty-five plates to the four-volume set, with three other illustrators completing the collection (Le Bouteux, Le Barbier, and Saint Quentin)." -Erin Helyard, University of Sydney