[300 illustrations] - L'INVOCATION ET L'IMITATION DES SAINTS - 1686-1687

Invocation and Imitation of the Saints for every day of the year. Paris, at Girard Audran, Regular Engraver to the King, 1686-1687.

First illustrated edition.

Text in French. Work attributed to Abbé Giraud (per Barbier), intended for daily devotion: for each day of the year it offers a brief excerpt from the saint’s life, a prayer, spiritual reflections and maxims drawn from Holy Scripture, with the explicit invitation to imitate the models of holiness (“Rendez-vous les imitateurs de ceux qui par leur foi & par leur patience sont devenus les héritiers des promesses de Dieu”).

Two volume in-24 (approximately 105 × 62 mm), contemporaneous brown calf binding (with typical signs of use of the period: worn headcaps, abrasions, partially cracked hinges, some pages short or loose, title of the first part mounted before the general title, overall browning of the paper). Overall pleasant and complete for the months present.
Only the first two volumes (January–June) of the four planned. Pages: [21], 16, [192]; [192] approx. (structure with one card per saint, with preface, approvals and privilege).

Importance and rarity
Original edition of great iconographic and spiritual interest, famous as the “Suite des Saints d’Audran.” It is illustrated by over 300 small and exceedingly delicate copper engravings by Sébastien Leclerc (1637-1714), one of the most refined French engravers of the seventeenth century, pupil and collaborator of Charles Le Brun. Each vignette, enclosed in an elegant frame, depicts with finesse and liveliness the main episode of the saint’s life or the liturgical feast (martyrs, confessors, virgins, movable feasts such as the Ascension and Pentecost). Leclerc’s engravings are of high quality, with crisp impressions, and constitute the main merit of the work: a true miniature hagiographic “book of hours,” intended for personal meditation.

The work was published in two forms (2 or 4 volumes) with title pages dated 1686 or 1687, but it is the same print run. Complete copies are quite rare on the market; the first two volumes (January–June) already represent a significant portion of the annual cycle and preserve intact the illustrative and devotional force of the whole. Subsequent reissues (early eighteenth century) replaced or reduced Leclerc’s original engravings, making this first print run particularly sought after by collectors of French illustrated books of the Grand Siècle and of hagiographic iconography.

Fine utilized copy, of great charm for the quality of the vignettes and for the rarity of the original Audran–Leclerc edition.