L'art francais dans le Livre d'Oiseaux Eléments d'une iconographie ornithologique française

Description:

Text French. 1,200 copies were printed of which 200 were issued as a limited deluxe edition of 200 numbered copies (this copy is No. 11). A substantial and scholarly survey of the history of French ornithological illustration, tracing its development from the earliest fifteenth-century woodcuts through the refinement of copper engravings and into the richly coloured chromolithographic plates of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Ronsil examines both artistic technique and scientific purpose, documenting the evolution of bird imagery. The work is particularly valued for its detailed iconographic analysis and its reproduction of rare and historically significant illustrations, offering insight into changing conventions of representation, accuracy, and aesthetics across five centuries of French book production. An important reference for collectors, historians of science, and students of natural history illustration.

Deluxe copies, such as the present example, were issued in a strictly limited numbered run and are considerably scarcer than the standard edition.

Condition

Later library buckram. Orig. wrappers retained (col. Illus laid down to front cover). Good. Withdrawn from an institutional library, a few ink stamps, shelf label to spine.