Académie

1753 · 11459 — Paris: Delaguette & Le Prieur 1753. 1st edition. 3 vols. 4to. Frontispieces in each volume engraved by Le Bas after Francois Boucher 1703-70. c.1900pp. 258 x 192mm.Contemporary half calf gilt a little rubbed. Occasional very light foxing or browning faint dampstain on a few leaves in vol. 1 but a fine set still. Bookplate & signatures in vol. 1.</p> <p> FIRST EDITION complete 4to. run later volumes appeared in 12mo. only Collects the prize competition papers of the Royal Academy of Surgery from the 1730's to the 1750's and features a frontispiece repeated in each volume by Francois Boucher considered the greatest French master of the first half of the 18th centuryand probably the most productive and versatile painter of the century. As royal painter Boucher could probably be called on to grace the prize publication of the recently created Royal Academy of Surgery; nevertheless a medical work illustrated by an artist of his rank was no less an exception then as now and should be valued on that basis. Blake 2.</p> . Delaguette & Le Prieur unknown books