The Royal Treatment: Books
In conjunction with Arader Galleries’ exhibition The Royal Treatment, which gathers our unparalleled collection of natural history watercolors painted at the French court (curated by Alison Petretti), we present here a brief collection of French royal books, broadly conceived. Some — Vallet’s almost micrographic florilegium for Henri IV, Plumier’s Description des plantes de l’Amerique with the supralibros of Louis XIV, Redouté and Ventenat’s masterful account of Empress Joséphine’s Jardin de la Malmaison — support the paintings directly.
Others are simply redolent of Versailles, the Louvre, Fontainebleau and other haunts of the crown retinue. Ménard’s re-issue of Joinville’s life of Louis IX (Saint Louis) presented to Marie de’ Medici is a poignant relic of the strife of the era; months after the volume was given to the Queen Mother, she was banished to Fontainebleau by the son whose portrait sits opposite that of the sainted subject. Beaulieu’s account of the military achievements — if perhaps slightly inflated — of Louis XIV is all the more alluring for its residence in the library of the Château de Malmaison, home of the Empress Josephine; what did she learn from them?
The court of France inspired in its era as it does today a reverence for the fineness of its trappings. “Versailles” has long been a byword for opulence. Volumes that passed through the collections of France’s kings or its high nobility have always commanded great esteem from collectors, and the assemblage presented below will, we hope, illustrate why.
Early 1. Vallet. Le Jardin du Roy tres chrestien Henry IV... 2. Joinville, ed. Ménard. Histoire de S. Loys IX. du nom... 3. Fouquet. Histoire d’Espagne with Histoire de France...
Louis XIV 4. Plumier. Description des plantes de l’Amerique 5. Beaulieu. Les glorieuses conquestes de Loüis le Grand 6. Louis XIV. Document signed (Fontainebleau) 7. Le Pautre. Les Plans... des Ville, et Château de Versailles
Louis XV 8. Longus, illust. Philippe II. Daphnis et Chloé 9. [Louis XV]. Les Statuts de l’Ordre du S.t Esprit
Louis XVI 10. Gifford. The unfortunate Lewis the Sixteenth
Napoleon 11. Redouté & Ventenat. Jardin de la Malmaison 12. Chateaubriand. De Buonaparte, des Bourbons 13. Thouin. Plans raisonnés de... jardins 14. Chambure. Napoléon et ses contemporains 15. Norvins & Raffet. Histoire de Napoleon
Louis Philippe 16. Noisette & Bessa. Le Jardin Fruitier...
J.L. Rosenberg Head of Rare Books
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Jonah Rosenberg
Head of Rare Books
Jonah Rosenberg joined Arader Galleries early in 2021 after five years as an antiquarian bookseller and a decade as a professor of art-history. He holds an A.B. in Classics from Brown and a D.Phil in Classical Archaeology from Oxford (St. John's College).
jonahrosenberg@aradergalleries.com 1 (646) 693-4122
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Vallet, Pierre and Jean Robin. Le Jardin du Roy tres chrestien Henry IV Roy de France et de Navarre dedie a la Royne. 1608.
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$ 75,000.00
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de Joinville, Jean; ed. Claude Ménard. Histoire de S. Loys IX. du nom, roy de France. Paris: Sebastien Cramoisy, 1617.
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$ 78,000.00
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[Fouquet, Nicolas]. Histoire d’Espagne with Histoire de France et premierem[en]t des gaulloys. 1650. Manuscript.
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$ 9,500.00
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Plumier, Charles. Description des plantes de l’Amerique. Avec leurs figures. Paris: Jean Anisson, Imprimerie Royale; 1693.
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$ 32,500.00
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[de Beaulieu, Sébastien de Pontault.] Les glorieuses conquestes de Loüis Le Grand, Roy de France. Et de Navarre dediées au Roy. Two volumes. Paris: for the Author, 1694.
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$ 125,000.00
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Louis XIV, King of France. Document signed. Fontainebleau: 13 September 1711.
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$ 2,800.00
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[Lepautre, Pierre et al.] Les Plans, Profils, et Elevations, des Ville, et Château de Versailles, avec les Bosquets, et Fontaines… Paris: Demortain, 1716.
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$ 9,500.00
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Longus; trans. Jacques Amyot; illust. Philippe II , Duc d’Orléans. Les amours pastorales de Daphnis et Chloé. 1718.
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$ 11,500.00
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[Louis XV — Fine Binding.] Les Statuts de l’Ordre du S.t Esprit estably par Henri du nom roy de France et de Pologne au mois de Decembre l’an M.D.LXXVII. [Paris]: Imprimerie Royale (Anisson), 1724.
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$ 9,500.00
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Gifford, John. A Narrative of the transactions personally relating to the unfortunate Lewis the Sixteenth, King of France and Navarre... London: for W. Locke, 1793.
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$ 1,800.00
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Redouté, Pierre-Joseph and Etienne Pierre Ventenat. Jardin de la Malmaison. Paris: L’imprimerie de Crapelet, 1803[-1805].
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$ 90,000.00
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Chateaubriand, François-René. De Buonaparte, des Bourbons, et de la nécessité de se rallier a nos princes légitimes, pour le bonheur de la France et celui de l’Europe. Paris: Mame Frères, 1814.
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$ 2,400.00
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Thouin, Gabriel. Plans raisonnés de toutes les espèces de jardins. Paris: Lebégue, 1820.
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$ 12,000.00
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de Chambure, Laurent Auguste Pelletier. Napoléon et ses contemporains. Suite de gravures représentant des traits d’héroïsme, de clémence, de générosité, de popularité, avec texte. Paris: Bossange Père & Bossange Frères, 1824.
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$ 4,800.00
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de Norvins, Jacques Marquet; illust. Denis-Auguste-Marie Raffet. Histoire de Napoléon. Paris: Furne et Cie., 1839.
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$ 4,500.00
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Pancrace Bessa. Le Jardin Fruitier, histoire et culture des arbres fruitiers... Paris: Fain & Thunot for Audot, 1833-1839.
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$ 9,000.00
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