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[Incunabulum] [Villon] CHARTIER (Alain).
See original version (French)
16
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[Incunabulum] [Villon] CHARTIER (Alain).
See original version (French)
Estimate €10,000 - €15,000
Voluntary lot
Description
[Incunabulum] [Villon] CHARTIER (Alain). Les faiz maistre Alain Charetier. Paris, Pierre Le Caron, [c. 1494].
A small folio volume (approx. 24.8 × 17.5 cm), in 19th-century red morocco, spine with richly decorated raised bands and panels, triple gilt fillet framing the covers, interior lace, all edges gilt, edged slipcase (binding signed Duru, 1852). Old whitish marks on the covers; a small paper loss in the lower margin of the last four folios, in the centre and upper margin of the last folio, previously restored; a tear without loss in the lower margin of folio K1; discreet earlier restoration in the lower margin of the last three folios. 134 unnumbered folios, printed in 40 lines in Gothic type in two columns: 66 folios for the prose Faiz, the last one blank, and 68 folios for the works in verse. Signatures: a-b⁸, c⁶, d⁸, e-k⁶ (complete with the blank folio k6); A-B⁸, C⁶, D⁸, E⁶, F⁸, G-K⁶. In the colophon: Printed in Paris by Pierre Le Caron, bookseller, residing in Paris on Rue de Quiquepoit under the sign of the white cross or at the palace near the first entrance gate.
Bibliography: GW 6559; ISTC ic00427000; Goff C-427; HC 4910; Pell. 3528; CIBN C-268; Van Praet IV, 238; Durrieu LIX. Bechtel, C-272. The BnF gives the same collation of 134 folios for this edition and dates it to around 1494.
A poet, writer and diplomat from Bayeux, Alain Chartier (c. 1385–1430) was one of the leading intellectual and literary figures of fifteenth-century France. Hailed by his contemporaries as the ‘father of French eloquence’, his work, written in French and Latin, exerted a lasting influence on French literature in the late Middle Ages.
The volume is adorned on the title page with a large, calligraphic and decorated capital ‘L’, a woodcut on the reverse of the title page depicting the author presenting his book to the King, a symbolic woodcut on the second leaf (Reason and Melancholy), repeated with some modifications at the beginning of the second part, and a full-page engraved genealogy. On the final leaf, beneath the colophon, is the mark of Antoine Vérard, chiselled and altered to bear the name of Pierre Le Caron.
The first part brings together Chartier’s prose works, notably *Le Livre de l’Espérance*, *Le Curial* and *Le Quadrilogue invectif*, to which are added the *Généalogie des rois de France* and the *Description de la Gaule*. The second part, in addition to the author’s works in verse (Le Lai de paix, Le Bréviaire des nobles, Le Débat du réveille-matin, La Belle Dame sans mercy, Le Livre des quatre dames…), also contains the Régime de Fortune by Michault Taillevent (c. 1390/95 – 1448/1458) and the *Ballade de bon conseil* beginning ‘Hommes failliz, bersaudez de raison…’. Long attributed to Chartier, this ballad is now recognised as the work of FRANÇOIS VILLON; the IRHT-CNRS’s Jonas database explicitly lists it under his name and notes that the attribution was established by Bijvanck as early as 1882.
An engraved ex-libris bearing the coat of arms of René Chopin and an ex-libris by Jean-Paul Barbier. A handwritten note indicates that the volume was acquired in New York on 25 May 1973. This copy was part of the Jean-Paul Barbier Library, which was sold at auction in Paris on 11 March 1974 [lot 43, sold for 49,000 francs]. Attached to the volume is a handwritten letter on the letterhead of the bookshop C. Coulet & A. Faure, booksellers and experts, dated Paris, 12 April 1974, addressed to a bibliophile and specifically offering him this copy at a price of 70,000 francs, emphasising ‘the rarity and importance’ of this incunabulum.
A PRECIOUS COPY CONTAINING ONE OF THE EARLIEST PRINTS OF FRANÇOIS VILLON’S *BALLADE DE BON CONSEIL*.
See original version (French)
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About the sale
Antique and modern books: catalogued sale
Auction location
Auction time
11/14/2026 at 10:30 AM
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