Verdex
Verdex
27 January 2023, 09:19

$2.7 million for an album of engravings: the history of illustrations for Lafontaine's fables

$2.7 million for an album of engravings: the history of illustrations for Lafontaine's fables
The 18th-century French painter Jean-Baptiste Oudry fell in love with the fables of Jean de La Fontaine so much that he decided to illustrate some of the works himself. He painted his first paintings in the 1720s - this is how the series was born, which formed the basis of four albums. Recently, one of the miraculously preserved original albums, including 138 illustrations, was sold at Christie's for $2.7 million.
Oudry's paintings became interested in Gabriel Yukier, who offered to create engravings based on them. In 1750, the first 12 engravings were produced - a series called Livre d'Animaux. Later, book illustration master Charles-Nicolas Cochin, Jr. took up the adaptation with a large team of engravers. As a result, in 1755-1756. three full-fledged albums were released, a few years later - the fourth. Due to high costs, the last volume had to be postponed - it was published in 1759.
Despite the skill and love that Oudry put into paintings dedicated to fables, these paintings remained in the shadows, people remembered engravings more. However, since then, most of the drawings have not been reproduced until 1973, when two albums were purchased by the merchant Klaus Virch. The new owner divided one of the albums into parts: some illustrations ended up in European museums, others settled in private collections. Another album (the first volume to hit Christie's) was sold by Virch to the British Railway Pension Fund. In 1996, it was sold at Sotheby's, and now, 27 years later, the album again became an object of auction.

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