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Books and Manuscripts

Thursday 25 June 2026, 03:00 PM • Rome

168

Illustrato

Fossati, Giorgio

Collection of various fables, 1744

Estimate

€ 2.000 - 4.000

Sold

€ 16.510

The price includes buyer's premium

Information

Venice, Carlo Pecora, 1744. In 4°. 6 volumes in two volumes. Double title pages, text in Italian and French, headpieces, and 216 full-page plates printed in various colors. Marginal foxing; some plates in the first and second tones appear slightly faded, perhaps an inking problem. Contemporary half-leather and marbled board binding; the top cover of the first volume has detached.

Specialist Notes

VERY RARE ORIGINAL EDITION with beautiful engraved plates in various shades of color that often depict glimpses of Venetian life in the eighteenth century.

Giorgio Fossati (Morcate, Canton of Ticino 1705–Venice 1785) was a renowned architect and set designer, and this work undoubtedly represents his finest achievement, a splendid example of 18th-century color engraving. A beautiful collection of fairy tale illustrations by Giorgio Fossati, an architect and apprentice of Domenico Rossi, who devoted himself to book illustration as an engraver. This collection of illustrated fairy tales, published in the midst of the Baroque era, is one of the works for which Fossati is remembered: his depiction of animals is realistic and distinctive, as is the interesting setting of the scenes in Baroque architectural settings, where the author can express himself with mastery. Fossati resided in Venice from 1716.

Filippo Pedrocco, in, The Glory of Venice, Art in the Eighteenth Century, 1994, ch. VIII, p. 290, & fig. 190. Cohen-de Ricci 410. Morazzoni p. 232 (vols I and II only). Rosenwald 1570.

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