[Paris, plates dated 1818-1820].
Folio of 86 full-page plates. Blue straight-grained morocco, gilt and blind-stamped borders around the covers, gilt arms in the center, ribbed spine decorated with blind-stamped borders and gilt tools, inner border, gilt edges. Simier R. du R., signature at foot of spine.
436 x 295 mm.
Very beautiful collection of views of castles from the library of the duchess of Berry, in a bindings by Simier.
86 lithographs in color, enhanced with gum Arabic, by Bourgeois (83) and Thiénon (3), printed by C. de Lasteyrie and F. Delpech.
Constant Bourgeois (1767-1841), a pupil of David, produced several suites of topographical views of Europe. In addition to plates from the Recueil de vues pittoresques de la France (Paris, 1818-1819), there are some very probably from the Voyage pittoresque à la Grande Chartreuse, suivi de quelques vues prises dans les environs de ce monastère (Paris, 1821).
Among the castles, sites and monuments depicted are the Semur keep, the castles of Rambouillet, Gisors, Frazé, Courtalin and Bois-Ruffin, Graville abbey, views of Voreppe, Ville-d’Avray and the Jouy factory, etc.
Copy in exceptional condition, contemporary bound by Simier with the arms of Marie-Caroline, duchess of Berry and with the bookplate of the château de Rosny (cat. 1837, n°l 905).
Marie-Caroline-Ferdinande-Louise de Bourbon-Sicile, daughter of Ferdinand I, King of the Two Sicilies, and Marie-Clementine, Archduchess of Austria, was born in Naples on November 5, 1798. On June 17, 1816, she married Charles-Ferdinand d’Artois, Duke of Berry, second son of the future Charles X, who was assassinated on February 13, 1820. Widowed at the age of 22, the Duchess of Berry devoted herself to the upbringing of her two children, Louise-Marie-Thérèse d’Artois and Henri-Charles-Ferdinand-Marie Dieudonné, Duke of Bordeaux, who was born posthumously. Very courageous, in 1832 she tried to foment a failed legitimist uprising in Vendee; betrayed on November 7 of the same year by the Jewish convert Deutz, she was imprisoned in the citadel of Blaye, where she gave birth to a daughter she had had with Count Hector Lucchesi-Palli, whom she had secretly married in 1831; released in June 1833, she was kept apart by the royal family and had the responsibility for her son’s education taken away from her. She lived in Venice and died on April 17, 1870 at Brunnsee Castle in Styria.
This princess, whose artistic tastes were highly developed, had built up a luxurious library in her château at Rosny, near Mantes, remarkable as much for the choice of editions and the richness of the bindings as for the importance of the manuscripts it contained.
The Duchess of Berry was not only a renowned bibliophile, but also an enthusiastic patron of the arts, with a keen interest in the work of contemporaries such as Ambroise-Louis Garneray, who depicted views of contemporary life. Her library contained finely illustrated travel books such as Achille Etienne Gigault de la Salle’s Voyage pittoresque en Sicile (Paris, 1822-[26], his dedicated copy, the Botfield copy, Christie’s London, March 30, 1994, lot 64) and an album of 125 engraved plates from Jacques Rigaud’s Recueil choisi de plus belles vues des palais, châteaux et maisons royales de Paris et des environs (Paris: circa 1730-1752, Christie’s London. December 9, 1983, lot 138), and the present album of views is very typical of her interest and taste for topographical printing.
Only recorded copy, complete with 86 contemporary coloured engravings, preserved in its contemporary armorial morocco binding, sold for € 45,601 by Sotheby’s London on June 13, 2002.
