BEAUTES DE L'OPERA (Les), ou chefs-d'oeuvre lyriques, illust - Lot 49

BEAUTES DE L'OPERA (Les), ou chefs-d'oeuvre lyriques, illustrés par les premiers artistes de Paris et de Londres sous la direction de Giraldon, avec un texte explicatif rédigé par Théophile Gautier, Jules Janin et Philarète Chasles. Paris, Soulié, 1845. Large in-8, full binding, brown morocco, ornate ribbed spine, boards decorated with romantic angle irons interconnected by fillets, inner tooth, lining and endpapers of white paper embossed with foliage, gilt tr. (Lebrun, bookbinder, 1851). FIRST ISSUE of this beautiful publication. Ten steel-engraved portraits of actresses and numerous woodcuts by Brugnon after Eugène Lami and Célestin Nanteuil in the text; historiated page frames in black, presenting animated scenes with characters, animals, grotesques or ornaments in color. Nine chapters, each devoted to a work: Les Huguenots, Giselle, Le Barbier de Séville, Le Diable boiteux, La Norma, La Sylphide, Don Juan, Ondine, La Juive. One of the most imaginative and seductive books of the Romantic period. A very fine, rare copy, with autograph letter to Madame Offenbach. Rich contemporary binding, signed by Lebrun. Provenance : - Bibliothèque Henri Beraldi (III, Paris 1934, no. 22) - Laurent Meeüs Library (Wittock 191)