Mes Reveries. Ouvrage Posthume de Maurice Comte de Saxe, Duc de Curlande et de Semigalle, Marechal des Armees de sa Majeste Tres-Chretienne. Augmente d’une Histoire abregee de sa vie, et de differentes Pieces qui y ont rapport, par M. L’Abbe Perau
SAXE, Maurice, Comte de
THE INVERQUHARITY COPY: REMARKABLY FRESH, CRISP ISSUE WITH HAND-COLOURED PLATES
Published: Arkstee et Merkus Amsterdam and Liepzig, 1757
Stock code: 51567
Price: £2,540.00
2 vols., roy. 8vo., First Edition, [Large Paper?], text in French, on laid paper, with 84 fine engraved plates (52 large and folding), ALL BUT TWO FINELY COLOURED BY HAND, and numerous fine engraved head- and tail-pieces, title and first Avertissement leaf of first volume creased; contemporary full tree calf, sides framed in gilt, backs with raised bands, second and fourth compartments with red leather labels framed, lettered and numbered in gilt, all other compartments richly framed and tooled in gilt with floral sprays, red sprinkled edges, boards mildly age-marked, upper joint of first volume cracked but sound, all other joints mildly rubbed (but bindings wholly sound), A REMARKABLY BRIGHT, FRESH, CLEAN, CRISP COPY WITH BROAD MARGINS IN WHOLLY UNRESTORED PERIOD BINDING.
With the eighteenth century personal bookplate of Steuart of the Isle of Man, overlaid by the nineteenth-century armorial bookplate of Sir John Ogilvy of Inverquharity on front paste-downs. From the broad margins this may well be a Large Paper or similar superior issue. The later bookplate is that of Sir John Ogilvy, 9th Baronet, (1803-1890), sometime MP for Dundee and Convener of Forfarshire. De Saxe (1696-1750) was a distinguished soldier of the first half of the eighteenth century, serving first the Holy Roman Empire, and then the Imperial Army, before French service as Marshal General of France. He is remembered for his victories during the Austrian Succession, most notably at Fontenoy in 1745, and for this most influential military treatise published shortly after his death. A SPLENDID COPY WITH NOTABLE PROVENANCE. Jähns II, 1502; Brunet V, 174.