Jean-Gaspard Lavater, L'art de connaître les hommes par la p - Lot 471

Jean-Gaspard Lavater, L'art de connaître les hommes par la physionomie. Paris, Prudhomme, 1806-1807-1809. 10 volumes in-8. "Nouvelle édition, corrigée et disposée dans un ordre plus méthodique; précédée d'une notice historique sur l'auteur; augmentée d'une exposition des recherches ou des opinions de La Chambre, de Porta, de Camper, de Gall, sur la physionomie; d'une Histoire anatomique et physiologique de la face, avec des figures coloriées; et d'un très grand nombre d'articles nouveaux sur les caractères des passions, des tempéramens et des maladies, par M. Moreau, docteur en médecine. Ornée de 500 gravures exécutées sous l'inspection de M. VINCENT, peintre, membre de l'Institut". A rigorously complete copy of all 604 engravings, including 519 hors-texte, some of them folding. These engravings are in black, except for 5 plates in volume IV and almost all those in volume IX (68) and the vignettes in the same volume, which are printed in sepia. These 604 engravings correspond to a total of 2,500 drawings. Balzac was fascinated from an early age by "Lavater's Physiognomy [which] has created a veritable science. It has finally taken its place among human knowledge. If, at first, a few doubts, a few jokes greeted the appearance of this book, since then, the famous Doctor Gall has come, with his beautiful theory of the cranium, to complete the system of the Swiss, and to give solidity to his fine and luminous observations." (Physiology of Marriage, CH XI, p. 1044). It was in 1822 that Balzac acquired this 10-volume edition: on August 20, 1822, in a letter to his sister Laure, he wrote: "J'ai acheté un superbe Lavater que l'on me relie." (Corr. I, n° 22-42). In La Comédie humaine, he quoted Lavater more than a hundred times. Full basane, smooth spine, fleurons, title and giblets, framed on the boards, marbled edges. Spines restored. Fine laid paper, scattered foxing. A good copy.