VOLTAIRE. Complete works. - Lot 305

VOLTAIRE. Complete works. An exceptionally complete copy of the famous Kehl edition, illustrated with plates and portraits by Moreau le Jeune, enriched with the second suite given by Moreau for the 1802 edition. S.l. [Kehl], Société Littéraire-Typographique, 1785-1789. 70 and 4 complementary volumes in-8, long-grained fir morocco basane, ribbed spines decorated with gilded fillets and boxes with decorations at the corners, boards decorated with antique-style framing, sides decorated with gilded fillet, gilded inner scroll, light blue paper counterpads decorated with cold framing, endpapers of same paper, all edges gilded. Approx. 450 pages per volume, 206 plates and 48 engraved portraits, 14 physics plates. Minor wear to boards, corners dulled, some foxing in places. Copy of the second edition on wove paper of these OEuvres de Voltaire illustrated with 94 plates and 16 portraits engraved by Delvaux, Lingée, Simonet, Dambrun, Duclos, Delignon, Guttenberg... after compositions by Moreau le Jeune, ours enriched with the new suite of illustrations given by the same artist for Renouard's 1802 edition, bringing the total number of plates and portraits to 254. Also bound are several additional portraits from various editions, as well as the frontispiece to the suite of prints published by the artist on his own account in the first volume. This copy is completed, bound identically, by the four volumes recommended by Brunet (Brunet V, 1353), i.e. the Table analytique et raisonnée des matières given by Chantreau (Paris, Deterville, 1801. 2 vols.) and the Supplément au recueil des lettres de M. Voltaire (Paris, Xhrouet, 1808. 2 vols.). Founded in 1780 on the initiative of Beaumarchais and Condorcet with the aim of publishing Voltaire's complete works, the Société Littéraire-Typographique was established in the fort of Kehl to avoid censorship. This enterprise mobilized colossal resources and became the largest printing works in Europe, with warehouses, foundries, printing workshops, five mills and forty presses employing over 200 people. The venture proved very costly, even ruinous, costing almost 2,200,000 livres with the purchase of Baskerville's typographic equipment and the Arches paper mills, largely financed by Beaumarchais himself, but also by Catherine II of Russia and the King of Prussia, who was the subject of the dedication. Hampered by censorship, political games and misappropriation of funds and copies, the enterprise nevertheless achieved its goal, and the 70 volumes were placed at the head of the procession when Voltaire's ashes were transferred to the Panthéon in 1791. Moreau's illustration for this monumental work is certainly one of his masterpieces, and "is sustained without fail from one end to the other for nearly a hundred compositions" (Brunet). An exceptional copy in beautiful empire bindings. [Bengesco 2142; Brunet V, 1353; Cohen 614].