BOOK OF FIRST COMMUNION containing all the acts... Lot 137

BOOK OF FIRST COMMUNION containing all the acts for confession, communion and confirmation, with edifying reflections and thoughts. By Father Bossuet. Paris, Belin-Leprieur et Morizot, L. Curmer (printing by G. Gratiot), undated [ca. 1850]. In-12, 8 ff.n.ch., 382 pp. and 1 f.n.ch. (Endorsement): midnight blue velvet, plates decorated with an ornamental carved wooden frame, figure in the centre of the first plate, smooth mute spine, gilt metal clasp, light beige lining and moire endpapers (contemporary binding). Communion book decorated with a frontispiece depicting the Virgin with the Rosary engraved after Carlo Doleil, a title-frontispiece and 2 plates printed in chromolithography by Engelmann and Graf, and 3 figures. Very elegant and rare velvet binding with carved wood decoration. It was made around 1850 in the Gruel-Engelmann workshop, as the title on the title-frontispiece seems to indicate: Gruel Engelmann Bookbinder. Henri Beraldi, who devotes two chapters to this type of binding in La Reliure du XIXe siècle, notes that the Gruel-Engelmann firm often called upon Liénard and Riester for the design of these carved wood decorations. Some slight foxing.