Descripción
12mo., (6 4/8 x 3 6/8 inches). Engraved title-page, Dedication leaf, Preface, description of Paris engraved throughout. Double-page and folding general plan of Paris with original hand-colour in part, double-page 'Plan Geographique' with original hand-colour in full, and map of the Environs of Paris with original hand-colour in outline, 20 detailed maps with some original hand-colour in part on 40 pages, vignettes throughout. Contemporary mottled calf, gilt (a bit worn at the extremities). Provenance: with the small engraved library label of Hippolyte Destailleur (1787-1852), architect, on the front paste-down; presentation bookplate to R.C. Norman, in memory of Henry Yates Thompson (1838-1928), publisher of the 'Pall Mall Gazette' and renowned collector of Illuminated Manuscripts, with an ALS, dated 30th July 1930, signed by Thompson's wife Elizabeth. A charming and detailed tourist's guide to Paris and Environs, with an illustrated description, and comprehensive directory of streets, hotels, messengers, coaches, monuments and other places of interest. Surprisingly published in 1758 when France and the great powers of Europe were involved in the terrible conflict known as the Seven Years War: the last major conflict before the French Revolution to involve all of the major nations of Europe, in which France, Austria, Saxony, Sweden, and Russia were aligned against Prussia, Hanover, and Great Britain. The war "arose out of the attempt of the Austrian Habsburgs to win back the rich province of Silesia, which had been wrested from them by Frederick II the Great of Prussia during the War of the Austrian Succession (1740 48). But the Seven Years War also involved overseas colonial struggles between Great Britain and France, the main points of contention between these two traditional rivals being the struggle for control of North America [known as the French and Indian War] and India. Britain s alliance with Prussia was undertaken partly in order to protect electoral Hanover, the British ruling dynasty s continental possession, from the threat of a French takeover" (Encyclopedia Britannica online). From the library of Hippolyte Destailleur, celebrated architect, interior designer, and collector. His designs and restoration work for some of the great châteaux of France and houses of England are well-known, and most of his collection of books, prints, and drawings, covering French artists of the 18th and 19th centuries, is now in the Cabinet des Estampes of the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. Henry Yates Thomson was the "foremost British manuscript collector of his day", and according to his wife carried this 'Petit Plan de Pasquier' "was a great favourite with my husband - He always carried it in his pocket while I had charge of the more commonplace Baedeker maps, and he liked to trace the changes in Paris. We found it also a very good companion to French memoirs & history, throwing light upon the many changes which Paris has undergone in the 150 years since the little volume appeared" (ALS). When he was eighteen his maternal grandfather, the publisher George Smith, bequeathed to him a group of ten medieval manuscripts. "It was a good time to be collecting: the library of Sir Thomas Phillipps was being dispersed, manuscripts from the Firmin Didot collection were still available in Paris, the Prussian government sold the Hamilton manuscripts in 1889, and in 1902 John Ruskin's collection was auctioned. Yates Thompson bought discriminatingly from all these sources, but his largest purchase was of over 200 manuscripts from the collection of the last earl of Ashburnham, acquired for the then high price of £30,000 in 1897. [His wife] left to the British Museum a group of forty-six illuminated manuscripts, to be known and catalogued as the Yates Thompson collection" (Alan Bell for DNB). Catalogued by Kate Hunter. N° de ref. del artículo 72lib1188
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