Lafond de Saint-Yenne (Etienne François) L'Ombre du Grand Colbert, le Louvre, et la Ville de Paris, only edition, [Not in BAL], The Hague, 1749 bound after Neufville (Nicolas de) Lettres...ecrites a Jacques de Matignon, Maréchal de France...1581...1596, Montelimar, 1749, together 2 works in 1 vol., some marginal water-staining, contemporary calf, spine gilt, rubbed and stained, head of spine and corners worn § Verrien (NIcolas) Recueil d'Emblêmes, Devises, Medailles, et Figures Hieroglyphiques..., 3 parts in 1, engraved portrait, part titles, dedication and 233 full-page illustrations of emblems, monograms etc., contemporary mottled calf, spine gilt, [cf.Berlin Kat. 5308, 1685 edition], Paris, C.Jombert, 1724 § Le Masson (Louis) [Sale Catalogue] Catalogue de Tableaux, Dessins, Estampes et Lithographies..., old embossed stamp to title, contemporary cloth-backed marbled boards, spine stained, [Lugt 12263], [Paris], 1830; and 11 others, French, on art and artists, 8vo et infra (14)

⁂ The first is a scarce imaginary three-handed dialogue between the ghost of Colbert (Louis XIV’s principal minister), the Louvre, and the city of Paris, by one of France’s earliest art critics, commenting on the state of the building and deploring the removal of most of the paintings in the French royal collection to Versailles. The last is the sale catalogue of the paintings, drawings & prints by and belonging to the architect Louis Le Masson (1743-1829), best-known for the “palais abbatial” at Royaumont (Val d’Oise) built in 1784 and one of the few overtly Italianate country houses to be designed in France at that date.