Oracles Flore by Del (1 results)
More imagesPublished by Paris, Janet,, 1825
- Hardcover
Seller: PY Rare Books, London, United KingdomPY Rare Books
Contact seller5-star sellerCondition: Used
US$ 2,709.37
US$ 26.98 shippingShips from United Kingdom to U.S.A.Quantity: 1 available
Add to basketFrom the Tsarskoe-Selo palace library --- Language of flowers and fortune-telling games in the Russian imperial library: a great example of this lovely book, in very attractive condition and without the foxing usually found. Complete with its hand-coloured plates. The entertaining game of cartomancy, which interprets "the langua…ge of flowers", is illustrated with six plates of 36 hand-coloured flowers and two plates listing their names. Players "create" their own bouquets by selecting flowers from the list, each carrying a specific meaningsuch as the jonquil symbolising infidelityto foresee challenges and triumphs in love and romance. This edition concludes with a fully engraved calendar for the year 1826. "A proper present for a young lady or a suitable addition to the family's collection of volumes sitting conspicuously on the "centre table" in the parlor" (Seaton), Oracles de Flore was first published in 1816 and is often attributed to Charles-François-Paul Delanglard, although we found an alternative attribution to Latour, who published other similar works. It gained great popularity, inspiring numerous other 19th-century romantic and prophetic floral games which explored the symbolic meanings of flowers. Generally joyful and frivolous, such floral divination books also "represent aspects of thought on the relationship between nature and man, and attitudes towards the study of nature itself" (Seaton). Provenance: Bibliothèque de Tsarskoe Selo (black ink stamp with imperial double-headed eagle to upper fly-leaf). Physical description:Duodecimo (11.5 x 7.4 cm). Engraved title with hand-coloured vignette, 152 pp. and [4] pp. fully engraved recto-verso with calendar, with 8 engraved plates, incl. 6 with original hand-colouring and their protecting tissue guards. Original turquoise glazed boards, plain flat spine, all edges gilt, kept in the original green glazed slipcase with gild decorations and lettering to 'spine'. Condition:Slipcase and covers minimally rubbed, very lightly faded; rare very minor foxing inside, small closed tear to one plate, an excellent, fresh example. Bibliography:Seaton, Beverly. "French Flower Books of the Early Nineteenth Century." Nineteenth-Century French Studies, vol. 11, no. 1/2, 1982, pp. 6071.
