DEZALLIER d’ARGENVILLE Antoine Joseph Histoire naturelle éclaircie dans une de ses parties principales, la conchyliologie qui traite des coquillages de mer, de rivière et de terre. Ouvrage dans lequel on trouve une nouvelle méthode latine et françoise de les diviser: augmenté de la zoomorphose ou représentation des animaux à coquilles, avec leurs explications.

Second edition, partly original, of Dezallier d’Argenville’s Conchology, undoubtedly one of the most famous works on shells of the 18th century. A magnificent copy in brilliant contemporary colouring and bound in a superb richly gilt red morocco binding.

Antoine-Joseph Dezallier d’Argenville’s treatise on shells was extremely popular in eighteenth-century France when collecting and scientific inquiry were closely linked. Many art collectors had shell collections as well, including François Boucher, who designed the frontispiece and Dezallier d’Argenville, who wrote and published the book. This work testifies to the enormous vogue of natural history among amateurs in 18th-century Europe.

The Conchyliologie has been immensely successful, largely due to the quality of the plates. It was François Boucher who provided the preparatory drawing for the frontispiece engraved by Chedel. The first edition of 1742 had only 32 plates. This second edition contains two parts: Conchology with the appendix and 3 new plates of rare shells that do not appear in all copies, and Zoomorphosis. Dezallier d’Argenville describes in chapter 10 the most famous cabinets in Europe relating to Natural History, including his own and those of the collectors at whose expense he had the plates drawn and engraved. Indeed Dezallier d’Argenville, advisor to the King and enlightened amateur, had assembled a beautiful natural history collection.

As a true man of the Enlightenment, he also wrote nearly six hundred articles for Diderot’s Encyclopédie, developed a method for classifying shells, stones and fossils, and published, in addition to a treatise on gardening, two major works on lithology and conchology.

The beautiful and interesting illustrations consist of an allegorical frontispiece by Boucher, engraved by Chedel, and 40 plates of shells, 28 of which are unsigned and taken from the first edition, with three additional plates for the first part, engraved by Flipart, and nine to illustrate zoomorphosis. Each engraving is captioned with the name of the subscriber who financed its production.

A superb copy, with the frontispiece and all the plates finely coloured at the time, which is very rare, and covered in a sumptuous morocco binding with large gilt decor.

Some slightly browned quires, pages 387 incorrectly numbered 337 and handwritten notes in the tables in Part II.

From the library of Jean-François Palisot (1716-1772), Lord of Beauvais, magistrate and bibliophile from Lille, with his book plate.