Recueïl de Descriptions de Peintures et d'Autres Ouvrages faits pour le Roy.

"BEFORE HIM, FRENCH LITERATURE OF ART DOES NOT EXIST" (THUILLIER, P. 80). 8vo. [16 x 9 cm]. (8) ff, 505 pp, (3) p, including an engraved plan of Versailles on p. 335. Bound in contemporary sheep with gilt titles and ornaments on spine. Head and foot sympathetically repaired; otherwise a very pretty and genuine copy, clean and fresh throughout. 18th century ex-libris of "M. Henault Avocat" on pastedown – possibly the writer and historian Charles-Jean-François Hénault (1685-1770), who was a magistrate by trade. Very rare first edition as such of this compendious guidebook to Versailles, comprising a descriptive catalogue of artistic works produced for the Sun King as well as a brief history of the site’s construction, and a description of the features of each garden, room, fountain, balcony, and facade. Secretary to the Académie d’Architecture since its foundation in 1671, André Félibien was a prolific popularizer of the project and is better-known for his large folio suites of engravings depicting various sites of interest at Versailles. The present work, however, is rarer: a charming, pocket guidebook for the use of everyday visitors. The publisher’s preface – written by Françoise Loir, who is named in the printing privilege and had taken over her deceased husband’s business in 1687 – also invokes a kind of nostalgia for the glorious first decades of Versailles’s transformation: "As there are accounts [here]… of several works which are no longer in the state they were in then, one will do well to read these descriptions to retrace in one’s memory the images of so many great things…" ("Le Libraire au Lecteur"). In 1661, Versailles was no more than a hunting-lodge favored by the former king, Louis XIII. Thanks to the architects Louis Le Vau, François d'Orbay, and Jules Hardouin-Mansart, as well as the landscape architect André Le Nôtre, the next five decades would see its transformation into the primary Royal residence, and a fitting monument to the glory of Louis XIV, the Sun King. Félibien was "commissioned to memorialize the flurry of artistic activity taking place at Versailles… Along with Le Brun, Felibien can be considered one of the principal architects of the Versailles project. He consulted in the design of the palace while his writing circulated the magic of Versailles, Louis’ court, and the royal fetes across France and Europe." (Goldstein, Vaux and Versailles: The Appropriations, Erasures, and Accidents That Made Modern France, pp. 128-129). The first edition of Félibien's guidebook was published in 1671, shortly after the completion of the second building campaign at Versailles. The 1671 Description contained only the "first part" found here, describing Le Brun’s Arc de la Place Dauphine and his paintings. Our new "second part" includes several separately-published (but now quite rare) pieces also authored by Félibien in 1674: "Description sommaire du chasteau de Versailles"; "Description de la grotte de Versailles"; and "Les divertissemens de Versailles". Finally, he adds an original allegory on painting, "Le Songe de Philomathe" (separately-published in 1683). "’Le Songe de Philomathe’ paints ut pictura poesis by presenting its images within a dream, that is, within the frame of a picture. Painting is thus assured its triumph even before any arguments are brought forward, since this comparison borrows the model of its exposition from one of the terms compared…" (The Eloquence of Color, p. 118). As well as describing each building, its facades and bas-reliefs, the sizes of its balconies and rooms, etc., Felibien is also much concerned with ornamentation. Notable staircases, statues, furniture, and ironwork are all given their due; as much of Le Brun's decoration made use of Baroque emblematics, Félibien explains in detail the deciphering of every symbol the visitor comes across. In US institutions, the 1671 edition is held at the NG, Winterthur, Harvard, Brown; the present, greatly-expanded "second" edition is held.…