The Printed Book: Its History, Illustration and Adornment: From the Days of Gutenberg to the Present TimeBouchot, Henri
History
The Printed Book: Its History, Illustration and Adornment: From the Days of Gutenberg to the Present Time
Bouchot, Henri
Bookbinding -- History; Books; Books -- History; Illustration of books; Printing -- History
In the vortex into which he was plunged, he successively illustrated the
works of Rousseau, published at Brussels, quarto; those of Boileau,
published by David and Durand, octavo; and Henault's "History of
France," in the same size, with numerous vignettes. One of these should
be noted in a book treating of printing; it is that in which Cochin
pretends to show to his contemporaries the interior of a workshop in
1470. Without doubt the sketch of this print was taken in one of the
houses frequented by him--at Jombert's, Didot's, or David and
Durand's--for that room in which compositors are working and printed
sheets drying was not an invention of Cochin, and served to reproduce a
printing office of the eighteenth century.
[Illustration: Fig. 83.--Vignette taken from P. Corneille's _Théâtre_,
by Gravelot.]
With Cochin soon worked a number of designers and aqua-fortists, too
prudent to lose the opportunity. The fashion arrived for books
beribboned, festooned, and flowered. Hubert François Gravelot had
carried to London this style of new works, which he knew how to
decorate, in his manner, better than any one, with letters, figures, and
tailpieces. He did not engrave much himself, leaving this work to lesser
artists, and contenting himself with subtle invention and graceful
subjects. With Eisen, Cochin, and Moreau, he is the French artist in the
sense of the time, free, bold, and ingenious, but perhaps a little out
of place in England. He published his plates to the "Decameron" in 1757,
one of the most curious of his sets of plates, and a hundred various
vignettes. On his return to France he designed the _Théâtre_ of P.
Corneille, from which the _Galerie de Palais_ is here reproduced, on
account of the illustration of bookselling which it gives. In 1764 the
large _salon_ of the Palace was still, as in the time of Abraham Bosse,
a place where shops were fitted up and the new books discussed. Side by
side with the dressmakers and merchants of every category, the
bookseller offers to his customer the recent products of Parisian
presses. Certain works were sold under cover and not shown; there is
here something to pique the curiosity of unoccupied young men who
strolled about and prolonged their stay in the galleries.
[Illustration: Fig. 84.--Border designed by Choffard in 1758.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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