Abbé Millot/Gravelot - Tableaux de l’histoire Romaine - 1796

Enter the magnificence of Enlightenment historiography with this sumptuously illustrated work, a brilliant witness to the refinement of the great bibliophiles of the late eighteenth century.

[MILLOT, Claude-François-Xavier]. Tableaux of Roman history; posthumous work, abridged by Millot himself, illustrated with 48 figures that represent its most interesting features. Paris, from the Imprimerie of Gay and Gide, Year IV of the Republic (1796).

A folio volume containing 48 superb plates hors-texte engraved in copperplate after Gravelot, accompanied by their corresponding explanatory leaves.

Period binding in half-calf with corners, smooth spine adorned with gold fillets and a green morocco title piece, boards covered with multicolored marbled papers, edges speckled.

Original posthumous edition of this historical abridgment written by the Abbé Millot, a famous academician and tutor, which offers an elegant and luminous synthesis of the great moments of ancient Rome. The illustrations are the true highlight of this volume, magnificently adorned with an allegorical frontispiece (“Rome Triumphant”) and 47 superb plates hors-texte drawn by Gravelot (notably “Foundation of Rome”, “The Abduction of the Sabines”, “Battle of the Romans and the Sabines” or “Crown and Sceptre Offered to Numa”) and engraved by the era’s most skilled artists such as Gauthier, Delignon, Tardieu, or Archimbaud.

A remarkably fine copy set in an elegant period binding with marbled boards, interior fresh despite very rare scattered foxing.

Gravellotted illustrated editions after Gravelot’s designs were particularly sought after by leading collectors of the late eighteenth century, so much so that some bibliophiles did not hesitate to have these suites of plates bound with sumptuous morocco to rival the elegance of their cabinets of historical curiosities.