[BOUCHOT, HENRI]. Catherine de Medicis. Paris: Goupil & Co., 1899.
First edition. Limited edition no. 66 - stated on limitation page. Hardcover. Leather-bound. Folio (360 x 280 x 60 mm.), pp. 181 + plates with captioned tissue-guards outside the pagination. Text in French. Printed on quality hand-made paper. Bound in stunning full crushed morocco and stamped in gilt on front turn-in 'Bound for William Brown, Edinburgh'. Spine compartments with gilt ruling and tooling, the covers with gilt panels and corner tools incorporating Catherine's cipher device topped with a crown, Royal crest gilt stamped to centre of both boards, single fillet edge-roll, top edge gilt, other page edges uneven, gilt ruled and tooled turn-ins, plain endpapers. Half-title page present, limitation page to verso printed in red and black. Title-page printed in red and black with printers device. Photogravure portrait frontispiece in colours with decorative gilt "frame" to the tissue-guard, and 40 other photogravures printed en grisaille, sepia and sanguine, some colour, all with tissue-guards lettered in red, 8 photogravure head- and tailpieces, facsimile letter printed on a tissue-guard in red. Printing and engraving by Manzi, Joyant & Co. at Asnieres-sur-Seine. Condition: NEAR FINE. Binding tight and secure the hinges perfectly intact and covers beautifully preserved with a couple of minor bumps or abrasions. Contents fine and without previous ownership markings. An exquisite example.
Notes: First edition, one of 1,000 copies on handmade paper by Blanchet Frères et Kléber, this is number 66. One of Goupil's lavishly Romantic turn-of-the-century illustrated historical biographies, here presented in an appropriately handsome binding.
