Premier livre de trophées contenant divers attributs d'église inventés et dessinés [...]. [- Deuxième [...] attributs de guerre. - Troisième [...] attributs militaires. - Quatrième [...] pastorals. - Cinquième [...] de chasse et de pêche. - Sixième [...] d'amour et de musique].

Folio: [30] engr. pl. (incl. 6 titles), laid paper, 29,5 x 45,5 cm, signed "J.C. de la Fosse inv." and "Le Canu sculp.", "P.F. Tardieu sculp.", "Le Canu sculp.", "Fessard sculp." and "Jacob sculp." (1st title a bit soiled and some sm. spots).

Contemp. calf, gilt-tooled spine with 7 raised bands (1st book detached, rubbed and worn, spine damaged).

Rare album with 30 ornament prints, published in 6 instalments or books with 1. Church, - 2. War, - 3. Military, - 4. Pastoral trophies, - 5. Trophies of hunting and fishing, and - 6. Trophies of music and love. Presumably an early state of these "books of trophies" drawn by the architect J.-Ch. Delafosse and engraved by Le Canu, P.F. Tardieu, Fessard or Jacob, all without the later lettering and numbering characterizing the prints when included in Delafosse's "Nouvelle Iconologie historique ou attributs hierogliphyques" (1st ed.: Paris, 1768; 2nd: 1771). Delafosse's work of the early 1760s was of seminal importance in the development of the neo-classical, architectonic style associated with the period of Louis XVI.
Ref. Guilmard - Les maîtres ornemanistes. (Paris, Plon, 1881), p. 219, 37-42. - Berlin Kat. I:11-12:24. - Myers - French architectural and ornament drawings of the eighteenth century. (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1991), n. 33-34.