HEBREW BIBLE, PARIS: ROBERTUS STEPHANUS, 1543-1546
Auction Closed
November 20, 08:47 PM GMT
Estimate
8,000 - 12,000 USD
Lot Details
Description
HEBREW BIBLE, PARIS: ROBERTUS STEPHANUS, 1543-1546
13 parts in 13 volumes (ranging from 3 3/4 x 2 3/8 in. to 4 3/8 x 2 3/4 in.; 96 x 61 mm to 111 x 69 mm): Vol. 1 (Genesis and Exodus): 270 folios (collation: i-xvii8, xviii10, xix-xxxiii8, xxxiv4 [final leaf blank]); Vol. 2 (Leviticus): 88 folios (collation: xxxv-xlv8); Vol. 3 (Numbers): 122 folios (collation: xlvi-lix8, lx10); Vol. 4 (Deuteronomy): 108 folios (collation: lxi-lxxiii8, lxxiv4 [final leaf blank]); Vol. 5 (Joshua and Judges): 150 folios (collation: i-xviii8, xix6); Vol. 6 (I-II Samuel): 176 folios (collation: i-xxii8); Vol. 7 (I-II Kings): 184 folios (collation: i-xxiii8); Vol. 8 (Isaiah and Jeremiah): 300 folios (collation: i-xvi8, xvii4 [final leaf blank], i-xxi8); Vol. 9 (Ezekiel and Twelve Minor Prophets): 262 folios (collation: i-xviii8, i-xiv8, xv6 [final leaf blank]); Vol. 10 (Psalms): 160 folios (collation: i-xx8 [final leaf blank]); Vol. 11 (Proverbs and Job): 114 folios (collation: i-xiii8, xiv10); Vol. 12 (Five Scrolls): 80 folios (collation: i-x8); Vol. 13 (Daniel, Ezra-Nehemiah, and I-II Chronicles): 304 folios (collation: i-xv8 [quire xi bound out of order], i-xxiii8 [quire xx bound out of order] [final leaf blank]). Seventeen separate title pages, each featuring woodcut printer’s device; woodcut initial word panels at the start of each biblical book, including each of the Twelve Minor Prophets; manuscript Latin marginalia and verse and/or chapter numeration in some books. Slight scattered dampstaining and soiling; minor episodic marginal tears; title of part 6 (Joshua and Judges) loose; one small wormhole in lower margins of parts 9-10 (Isaiah-Jeremiah); quire 11 of part 12 (Daniel and Ezra-Nehemiah) and quire 20 of part 13 (I-II Chronicles) bound out of order. Eighteenth-century gilt-tooled mottled calf, bumped and worn; turn-ins of Vols. 4, 7, 10, 13 gilt; edges of Vols. 1, 6-7, 13 stained; edges of Vol. 4 speckled red; edges of Vol. 10 gilt; silk bookmarks in Vols. 4, 8; spines tooled in gilt with red and black lettering pieces giving biblical book name(s), printer name, and part number(s) (1-17); some joints starting and some headbands or tailbands exposed; contemporary paper flyleaves and pastedowns (marbled in the case of Vol. 4).
The first pocket-size edition of the Hebrew Bible printed in France, a typographic gem.
Robert I Estienne (also known in Latin as Robertus Stephanus; 1503-1559), scion of the famous family of French printers, was an important sixteenth-century publisher of Latin and Hebrew texts. Having been appointed King François I’s (1494-1547) official Printer in Hebrew and Latin on June 24, 1539, Estienne would immediately proceed to produce a wide-margined quarto edition of the Hebrew Bible (1539-1543), followed by the present sextodecimo imprint.
Estienne’s commitment to the production of beautiful Hebrew books is evident in the quality of the paper and fonts he used for this series. Having found the existing Hebrew type available to him in Paris unsatisfactory, he hired Jean Arnoul, dit le Picard le jeune – considered one of the most skilled type-cutters of the age – to create new typefaces. Estienne also made sure to reproduce the most accurate printed text of the Bible then in circulation, that of Daniel Bomberg’s Second Rabbinic Bible (Venice, 1524-1525). Still, according to David Berkowitz, “While the errors of the quarto edition have been corrected, this charming edition has been a favorite of collectors over the centuries for aesthetic rather than textual considerations.”
Provenance
Domus Lugdunensis Soc. Jesu, JHS (stamps in each volume)
Tel Aviv University Library (stamps in each volume)
Alexandre Coullez (parts 1, 8, 16-17)
Mr Hilaire (parts 3, 5, 7, 14)
Jacobus Picharo (part 13)
Literature
Elizabeth Armstrong, Robert Estienne, Royal Printer: An Historical Study of the Elder Stephanus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1954), 51, 119-121.
David Sandler Berkowitz, In Remembrance of Creation: Evolution of Art and Scholarship in the Medieval and Renaissance Bible (Waltham, MA: Brandeis University Press, 1968), 99 (no. 169).
Hendrik D. L. Vervliet, The Palaeotypography of the French Renaissance: Selected Papers on Sixteenth-Century Typefaces, vol. 1 (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2008), 136-144.
Vinograd, Paris 18