PUGET DE LA SERRE, Jean.

L'isthoire et les portraits des Imperatrices, des reynes, et des illustres princesses de l'augsute maison d'Austriche, qui ont porte le nom d'Anne.

Paris, Pierre de Bresche, 1648.

In-folio (440 x 305 mm), (5) ff., 51 pp., (2) ff.

Full red morocco, double framed with three gilt fillets on the covers, fleurons at the corners of the lower frame, central coat of arms on medallion, ribbed spine decorated with gilt filleting and repetitions of iron and dotted lines, roulette on the edges, gilt edges, marbled endpapers (contemporary binding).

A precious and extremely rare first edition.

An exceptional copy bearing the arms of Anne of Austria (1601-1666). Puget de la Serre (1594-1665), a prolific author, ‘cultivated almost all historical and literary genres and composed more than one hundred works which earned him the title of historiographer of France’. (Kokkomelis).

Our copy presents 10 coloured figures representing princesses bearing the first name Anne, with a ruled text. All are enhanced with blue, white, red, green, gold and black inks. The motto is repeated 14 times in a sublime headband with a crowned eagle enhanced with the various inks listed above. In the same way, 14 letterheads, also enhanced, are repeated in the work; 13 letterheads show the letter A (gilt) for Anne with the crowned eagle on a blue background and 1 letterhead shows the letter M (gilt) for Madame with the crowned eagle and two floral representations. There are also 8 bas-de-lampe panels bearing the monogram of Anne of Austria, with its golden crown and floral representations.

Puget de la Serre was often scorned by his contemporaries, and the book is one of his many panegyrics. He became a specialist in dedicatory epistles and made them his sole source of income (Banderier) and responded to criticism by saying ‘I am always in a hurry, when it comes to earning money; and I prefer the pistoles that make me live comfortably, to the chimera of a vain glory that would leave me miserable.’ (Banderier). Above all, Puget de la Serre's attention to detail was crucial to his illustrations, from portraits - his preferred mode of representation - to lettering, vignettes, headbands, frontispieces and even the text itself, which he often set off with a line of red or black ink - in this case gilded (Meyer).

Fine restorations to corners and spine, paper restorations to pages 9 and 19.

Kokkomelis, Les portraits au service des grands : Jean Puget de la Serre et les temps multiples de l'exemplification historique, 385-400, dans : Papers on French Seventeenth Century Literature, XLV, n°89, 2018 ; Gille Banderier, Un faux roman à la clef : Le roman de la cour de Bruxelles de Jean Puget de La Serre, Littératures classiques, 2005, n°51, p.118 ; Véronique Meyer, Un auteur du XVIIe siècle et l'illustration de ses livres, Jean Puget de La Serre (1595-1665), Bibliothèque de l'Ecole des Chartes, t.158, 2000, p.27-53.