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Lot 156•
CERVANTES SAAVEDRA (MIGUEL DE) El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha... nueva edicion corregida por la Real Academia España, 4 vol., EMPEROR MAXIMILIAN OF MEXICO'S COPY, Madrid, Don Joaquín Ibarra Impresor de Cámara de S.M. y de la Real Academia, 1780
11 November 2015, 13:00 GMT
London, KnightsbridgeSold for £18,750 inc. premium
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CERVANTES SAAVEDRA (MIGUEL DE)
El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha... nueva edicion corregida por la Real Academia España, 4 vol., EMPEROR MAXIMILIAN OF MEXICO'S COPY, 4 additional engraved titles, portrait of the author and 31 plates after Carnicero, Barranco, Brunette, Del Castillo, Ferro and Gil, engraved by Ballester, Barcelon, Fabregat, Gil, Mol, Muntaner, Salvador y Carmona and Selam, double-page engraved map, engraved ornamental initials and head- and tail-pieces, occasional light soiling and staining, contemporary mottled sheep, sides with gilt roll tool borders, gilt panelled spines with red morocco labels and floral tools, g.e., skilfully restored with later endpapers [Palau 52024; Cohen/de Ricci 218-219], 4to (296 x 220mm.), Madrid, Don Joaquín Ibarra Impresor de Cámara de S.M. y de la Real Academia, 1780
Footnotes
EMPEROR MAXIMILIAN'S COPY OF ONE OF THE GREAT MONUMENTS OF SPANISH TYPOGRAPHY. "Magnífica edición y superior en belleza artística a todas las que hasta entonces se habían hecho en España y en el extranjero" (Palau); a book which, according to Richard Ford, "no grand library should be without".
The idea for an edition illustrated by the best Spanish artists of the day, members of the Academia de San Fernando, was conceived in 1773 by Vincente de los Ríos (1732-1779), soldier and Cervantista, and Francisco Antonio de Angulo, secretary of the Academia Real. Some 1600 copies of the work were printed, on special paper from the Guarro mill in Catalunya and with specially designed type cast from matrices made by Jerónimo Gil.
Maximilian I was the younger brother of the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph. Sent out to rule Mexico in 1864, he was captured and executed by rebels three years later. He had acquired the present volume in 1865 when he bought part of the library of the bookseller Andrade, hoping that this would form the nucleus of a national Imperial Library. However, he hadn't paid Andrade for the collection at the time of his death, and it was hastily packed up by the owner during the last days of the Empire and transported on mule-back to Vera Cruz, from where it was shipped to Europe and sold by public auction in Leipzig in 1869, fetching over $16,500. Many of the rare printed books and pamphlets on Mexico were acquired by the American historian Hubert Howe Bancroft and now form part of the Bancroft Library in the University of California.
Provenance: José Maria Andrade (1807-1883, Mexican bookseller); Emperor Maximilian of Mexico; Laurent Veydt (1800-1877, Belgian Minister of Finance), bookplates; Jules Malou (1810-1886, Belgian Prime Minister and Minister of Finance), letter recording the presentation of the volume to him (Brussels, 1876).