[Color-Plate Books] Sommerard, (Alexandre du): Les Arts au Moyen Age

Sommerard, (Alexandre du)
Les Arts au Moyen Age
(Paris, 1838-46). First edition. In six volumes, comprising one atlas volume and ten series of plates bound into five volumes; without the five 8vo text volumes. Elephant folio, 21 x 15 3/8 in. (533 x 390 mm) Illustrated with 9 color lithographic title-pages for series 1-9 (series 10 without title-page); one hand-colored engraved title-page in atlas volume, heightened in gilt; one lithographic frontispiece of Sommerard; 509 chromolithographic or lithographic plates (many printed or heightened in gilt, and many with hand-coloring). Full contemporary green morocco, elaborately stamped in gilt, brown morocco spine labels, light rubbing to boards and extremities, scattered scratching to same, dampstain in bottom rear corner of Album V-VI and front corner of Album IX-X; all edges gilt; gilt dentelles; marbled endpapers; armorial book-plate of M.C.D. Borden on front paste-down of each volume; small ownership blindstamp cipher (“D.A.D. More Matorum”) in margin of most plates; scattered foxing and spotting to plates; some plates lightly toned; fore-edge and top edge repaired, Pl. 19, series 3; dampstaining in bottom edge of first ten plates in series 5 and series 9; bottom edge repaired, Pl. XI, series 5; fore-edge repaired, Pl. XXII, series 5; bottom edge repaired, Pl. XXXI, series 5; other scattered margin repairs; shallow tidemark, bottom edge Pl. XIV, series 5; some dampstaining to bottom and top edges of plates in series 10.

A fine set of Alexandre du Sommerard's monumental work on the arts of the Middle Ages, covering architecture, illuminated manuscripts, tapestries, paintings, furniture, and various other objects, all beautifully executed in full-page chromolithographic and lithographic plates. A French civil servant for most of his career, Sommerard (1779-1842) began collecting French art from the Middle Ages beginning in 1825. In 1832 he purchased the historic Hôtel des Abbés de Cluny in Paris to hold his large collection, arranging rooms with period furniture, art, and objects to replicate interior spaces of the past. Beginning in 1838 he began work on this publication illustrating his collection's highlights, which was published in 10 parts (or Series) over the next decade. Upon his death in 1842, the collection and building were acquired by the French state, and in 1843 made into a museum. Now operating as the Musée de Cluny, it is the official French museum dedicated to the arts of the Middle Ages.

M.C.D. Borden (1842-1912) was an American industrialist and textile manufacturer, known as the “Calico King”. He established the American Printing Company in 1880, which grew to become the largest cloth printing company in the world. He was a director of the Manhattan Company Bank, the Lincoln National Bank, the Astor Place Bank, the Lincoln Safe Deposit Co. and the New York Security & Trust Co. He also served as New York City Commissioner of Parks.

Sotheby's, New York, February 2, 1985, Lot 106