Académie royale des sciences. DESCRIPTION DES... Lot 43

[Académie royale des sciences]. DESCRIPTION DES ARTS ET METIERS faites ou approuvées par Messieurs de l'Académie royale des sciences. Paris, Saillant & Nyon, Desaint, Imprimerie L. F. Delatour, Imprimerie Moutard, H.L. Guerin, 1761-1783. 22 volumes in-folio (45 x 31 cm), full contemporary calf, richly ornamented ribbed spines, red and havana morocco title-pieces, gilded fillets framing the sides and edges, red edges. Volumes 1 to 13 are homogeneously bound, volumes 14 to 18 in the same format are decorated slightly differently, the last 4 are also different, but homogeneously bound (some scuffing and spotting, some slightly worn headpieces and tails, some dull corners). First edition. A veritable encyclopedia of arts and techniques, the Description des Arts et Métiers was born at the instigation of the Académie des Sciences, created by Colbert to promote the development of science. With the Académie's project for a general History of the Arts in mind, it was at the instigation of physicist and naturalist René-Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur (1683-1757) that notes and drawings were compiled on a number of subjects, the latter being tasked with collecting the Memoirs of Academicians and other scholars in France and abroad. Réaumur himself contributed a number of articles, some of which were read at the Académie, but not published until many years later, sometimes with additions. On his death in 1757, Henri-Louis Duhamel du Monceau (1700-1782) was entrusted with the task of continuing this editorial enterprise. In 1761, the first booklet, L'Art du charbonnier, ou Manière de faire le charbon de bois, was published. The series continued to appear regularly until 1782, sometimes with plates and texts revised and corrected by the same authors or others (many of these works were published over several years), before concluding in 1788 with L'Art du potier d'étain. The descriptions are illustrated with beautiful, accurate plates, drawn and copper-engraved in intaglio by the most skilful artists of the second half of the 18th century, including Patte, Gardette, Saint-Aubin, Caffieri, Goussier, Roubo and others. Scholars, specialists and professionals all contributed to this veritable documentation of craftsmanship. Among them: Réaumur, Courtrivon, Roland De La Platière, Lalande, Abbé Nollet, Garsault, Gallon, Macquer, Bedos De Celles, Romme, Fourcroy De Ramecourt, Chapman, Malouin, Dudin, Fougeroux De Bondaroy, Fougeroux D'angerville, Roubo, Perret, Paulet, Duc De Chaulnes, Hulot, Morand, Saint-Aubin, Demachy, Salmon, Vieil, Lucotte, etc. Our 22-volume series consists of around one hundred quires illustrated with a frontispiece, 1,584 plates, many of them double-page and/or folding, and 8 tables. The Avertissement to Volume 1 states that "L'Académie donne la description des Arts par cahiers séparés avec tous les détails nécessaires représentés dans des planches gravées soigneusement. Published separately, this enabled artists to obtain these treatises on the arts they practise, without being obliged to buy at the same time others that would be less necessary to them". The various Arts are bound here in the order in which they were published. Although incomplete with a few treatises, this encyclopedia of arts and techniques was, even then, extremely rarely complete. Our copy is incomplete with the first 3 sections of L'Art du facteur d'orgue and pages 621-622 of the 4th section (T19), as well as pl. 79 of L'Art du fabricant d'étoffes de soie (T21), Traité général des pesches which is missing the 1st and 2nd sections of part 1 and the 4th section of part 2 (with pl 18 of Tome 9 enclosed separately with the work), and Art d'exploiter les mines which is missing a few leaves. The treatises missing here are: Art du paumier-raquetier et de la paume by Garsault (1767), Art de fabriquer la brique et la tuile en Hollande by Jars (1767), Nouvelle méthode pour diviser les instruments de mathématique et d'astronomie et Description d'un microscope by the Duc de Chaulnes (1768), and Art du pottier d'étain by Salmon (1788). Some of these treatises, revised and enlarged, as well as new ones, were published in Neuchâtel by Bertrand between 1771 and 1783. Overall, some freckling, spotting and soiling, a few browned leaves and plates, some traces of damp and wetness (significant on about twenty plates of T11), a few plates cut short in the margins (with slight loss of image on plate 13 Art du vitrier T14), slight red edge bleeding on the