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Volume of Pamphlets by Augustin Dupré

Currency:USD Category:Coins & Paper Money Start Price:3,500.00 USD Estimated At:5,000.00 USD
Volume of Pamphlets by Augustin Dupré
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[Dupré, Augustin]. BOUND VOLUME OF FIVE PAMPHLETS BY AUGUSTIN DUPRÉ, GRAVEUR GÉNÉRAL DES MONNAIES DE FRANCE. 8vo, early nineteenth-century brown quarter calf and mottled boards; spine with four raised bands, ruled and decorated in gilt, and lettered: A. DUPRÉ / SUR LES MONNAIES; marbled endpapers; silk marker. Inscribed on the front flyleaf verso by Narcisse Dupré, son of Augustin. [...] Carefully preserved, with only minor rubbing to the spine and redundant folds to the large folding table in the final work. Fine. A remarkable volume of exceptional historical interest, from the library of Augustin Dupré with several annotations in his hand. Bound together herein are five very rare publications by this renowned artist. Dupré (1748-1833), remains one of the most important engravers of French coins in modern history, and his designs for early U.S. medals (mostly notably the Libertas Americana) have ensured his lasting fame in the western hemisphere. All five of these works are rare, being known primarily from institutional holdings and being virtually unknown on the secondary market. Little-known in the numismatic world, they are rarely listed in the usual bibliographies (Engel & Serrure list only the first work present here as 2376). They are unmentioned by Lipsius at the end of the eighteenth century and by Dekesel at the beginning of the twenty-first. O.-C. Reure's Bibliothèque des écrivains foréziens ou qui se rattachent au Forez par leur résidence ou leurs fonctions jusqu'en 1835 (Montbrison, 1914) lists the final three works bound in this volume (pages 282-283), as do a few other specialized French bibliographies (though they remain unlisted by Brunet). They were virtually unknown to modern numismatists until the April 2, 2014 sale of the Dupré archives by Bonhams in New York, of which this was part. An extraordinary opportunity. [Online description truncated: see the printed or PDF catalogues for full description.]