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Daguerre Savoie

38 - BLONDEL (Jaques [sic]).— A Treatise on the Power of the Imag…
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Estimate €150 - €250
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Description
BLONDEL (Jaques [sic]).— A Treatise on the Power of the Imagination of Pregnant Women over the Foetus. Translated from the English by Albert Brun. Leiden: Gilbert Langerak & Theodore Lucht, 1737. In-8, hard vellum binding, speckled edges, modern ex-libris stamp on the flyleaf. [8 ff.], 181 pp. (incorrectly numbered 175), [1 p.], [5 ff.]. Title in red and black. First French translation of this work by Blondel (1666–1734), a French physician based in London, where he published this book in English in 1727. It forms part of the long-standing dispute, dating back to antiquity, between the anti-imagionists and the imagionists, the latter claiming that anomalies in newborns could be explained by the impression made on women’s imaginations due to their extreme sensitivity. Blondel belongs to the former camp. In the Supplement to the work, he lists a number of cases, such as that of Bartholin’s cat. The latter had claimed that in 1638 a woman from the city of Leiden, having been frightened by a cat that had crept into her bed, had given birth to a child ‘well-formed in all its parts, except for the head, which resembled that of a cat’. ’ Blondel refutes this ‘phenomenon’ as well as others of a similar nature. A rare and curious work.
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About the sale In preparation – The Jean-Paul Delon Bookshop Collection, Part I (Bibliography – Scholarship – Bibliophilia)
Auction location
Auction time 10/05/2026 at 2:00 PM
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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