Catéchisme et sommaire de la religion chrestienne

Octavo, tawny morocco, covers and spine adorned with a fanfare-style decoration, owner's name Martial Dusault stamped in gold in the central medallion, gilt edges. Period binding attributed to the Workshop of Clovis Eve (1584-1635).

157 x 108 mm.

Catechism and Summary of the Christian Religion, made by order and decree of the Holy Council of Trent, which commands all parish priests to teach it to the people. To which is added an Index... The French translation corresponds to the Latin on the opposite page. Bordeaux, S. Millanges, 1583.

Precious edition anonymously published as to the translation, which must be by Jean Gillot as is the one given by the same printer in 1578. (Desgraves, Bibliography of Simon Millanges, no. 56).

Charming woodcut vignette on the title page, depicting the Annunciation.

Ruled copy, in a very beautiful fanfare-style binding attributed to the Workshop of Clovis Eve (1584-1635).
Son of Nicolas Eve, Clovis Eve, bookseller, bookbinder, and gilder, took over his father’s workshop upon reaching majority in 1584, and was also appointed bookbinder to the king, a position he held at least from January 13, 1584 to the end of May 1633. In this capacity, he handled commissions for the Order of the Holy Spirit, remaining their preferred contact until his death. His career was notably long, spanning nearly forty years, during which he produced both semé bindings and those decorated with small tools known as “fanfare” style.

“Great is the honor Mr. Raphaël Esmerian has done me in asking me to present his collection here. Certainly, many of these volumes are already known, having appeared first in the most famous sales, then at the memorable exhibition The History of Bookbinding, organized in 1957 in Baltimore by Miss D. Miner, and also in New York, in 1966, at another exhibition, Bookbinding styles during the Renaissance in France, which Mr. Esmerian himself organized, using solely the resources of his own library, for our colleagues at the Grolier Club. However, no one, unless I am mistaken, not even the close friends of this great collector, has had until now the opportunity soon to be given regular visitors to the Palais Galliera to admire side by side, over the course of six successive sales, the items making up this collection. And if there are in the annals of bibliophily other celebrated auctions, one may well ask if, in over a century in France, there have been any that gathered such an ensemble of books—I mean an ensemble as significant, as beautiful as these, chosen with such refined taste, such high standards, and such sure expertise, with a catalogue—which will be especially clear from the one grouping the seventeenth-century books—that brings to the greatest connoisseurs of French bookbinding revelations of exceptional importance.” (Jacques Guignard, Chief Curator of the Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal).

Manuscript ex-libris dated 1726 on the title, partly erased.

From the libraries of Horace de Landau (1948, no. 35), Hely-Hutchinson (1956, no. 206), and Raphaël Esmérian (I, 1972, no. 45).

A second, more modest fanfare binding from R. Esmérian (126 x 82 mm), went under the hammer on October 11, 2023 in the Kimball Brooker sale at Sotheby’s New York, described as no. 84, and realized a reasonable $20,320 USD.