With Significant Portions of the De Boze Collection;
Priced Throughout with Buyers’ Names

(AUCTION CATALOGUE: COTTE, Jules François de).

Catalogue des Livres rares et précieux, et des Manuscrits, composant la Bibliothèque de M*** [“de Cotte” supplied in a contemporary hand], dont la Vente se fera le Jeudi 22 Germinal (12 Avril 1804) et jours suivans…

xii, 320, [4] pp. 8vo, cont. polished calf triple gilt fillet round sides, flat spine gilt, blue morocco lettering pieces on spine. Paris: G. De Bure père et fils, 1804.

An important sale, containing a large portion of books from the famous De Boze collection. De Boze’s library was acquired in 1753 before the scheduled auction jointly by Cotte (1721-1804), Président au Parlement de Paris, and Charles Robert Boutin, Maître des Requêtes, for the sum of 83,000 livres. They, in turn, sold most of the fifteenth-century books, reputedly for 80,000 livres, to Louis-Jean Gaignat, except for the Gutenberg Bible, of which he probably already owned a copy. Cotte and Boutin then divided up among themselves the books they wished to keep, and sold the remainder by auction through Martin in 1754.

This was one of the great and most highly anticipated sales of the period which dispersed a very large portion of the legendary De Boze collection formed more than fifty years before. The sale was an enormous success and Didot was a major buyer. Cotte made his first important purchases at Count d’Hoym’s sale in 1738.

Fine and pretty copy with the four-page schedule of sale at end. 2422 lots plus two further numbered lots and one lot of three dozen skins of red morocco. Pages [308]-320 list another ca. 180 lots of manuscripts. Priced throughout with buyers’ names in a contemporary hand. This catalogue is rare.

❧ Gustave Brunet, Dictionnaire de Bibliologie Catholique, col. 439–“Les classiques grecs et et latins y dominent. Belles éditions et exemplaires de choix payés alors à des prix qu’on ne retrouverait plus aujourd-hui.” Guigard, II, pp. 162-63. Peignot, p. 91–“Catalogue intéressant; beaucoup d’articles se sont vendu exorbitamment cher.”.

Price: $3,500.00

Item ID: 5860