ERNST Bruno Papillons d’Europe, peints d’après nature. Tome premier [- huit].

Nissen, ZBI, 1300 ; Horn-Schenkling, 6051 ; Brunet, II, 1048-1049 ; Flety, 62.

First edition of one of the most beautiful French books devoted to butterflies. Only 250 copies were published, reserved for subscribers.

The work is dedicated to Jean Gigot d’Orcy (1733-1793).  A monk at the Petits-Augustins convent, Reverend Father Jacques Louis Florentin Engramelle (1734-1814) was commissioned by the wealthy collector and finance official Jean Gigot d’Orcy to produce a major work describing his beautiful natural history collection in detail. Gigot d’Orcy brought in the Alsatian naturalist and illustrator Jean-Jacques Ernst, who was also a collector of butterflies.

The first volume was published by subscription in Paris in March 1779. Between 1779 and 1792, twenty-nine notebooks comprising eight volumes were published, describing more than 3,000 specimens. Most are described in three stages, the first being the caterpillar, the second the chrysalis, and the third, known as the “perfect state,” being the imago. Gigot d’Orcy assembled the largest entomological collection of his time. He kept it in his mansion on Place Vendôme, now the headquarters of Boucheron, which he had bought for 180,000 livres in 1780. He financed Papillons d’Europe, as quoted in the dedication of the first volume.

Upon his death, his rich and elegant library was sold at auction (Catalogue des livres de feu citoyen Gigot d’Orcy, Paris, Veuve Tillard et fils, 1794) and the natural history collection followed ten years later (Catalogue abrégé des minéraux, coquilles, madrépores et autres objets faisant partie du cabinet de feu M. Gigot d’Orcy, Paris, 1804).

The illustrations in this magnificent publication include three engraved frontispiece titles (two of which are colored), 350 plates (1-342, and 8 additional plates) colored at the time, some of which are enhanced with gold or silver, 3 technical plates printed in black (butterfly hunting instruments), as well as the engraved dedication leaf.

A magnificent copy, with all margins intact, bound around 1820 by Ducastin, a family of printers and bookbinders who had been practicing their craft since the reign of Henry IV.