Madame de Genlis Teaches Mythology -- with Colored Plates
Arabesques mythologiques, ou Les attributs de toutes les divinités de la fable ... Ouvrage fait pour servir à l'éducation de la jeunesse. Par Madame de Genlis.
Paris: Charles Barrois, 1810.
Price: $900.00
About the item
First edition. With 54 engraved emblematic plates by Gaitte after drawings by Madame de Genlis herself, finely colored. [4], xxx, 166 pp. 1 vols. 12mo. Madame de Genlis Teaches Mythology -- with Colored Plates. Contemporary quarter morocco and marbled boards. Very good plus (a few stray traces of foxing). Gumuchian 2699-70.
Item #313615
A remarkable, ingenious, and beautiful book by the famous pedagogue Genlis, who created these beautiful drawings herself as a means of instructing the young in mythology. Each plate represents the attributes of a deity with symbolically encircling the name -- and the names are mirrored symmetrically. "Their names, always doubled for symmetry, are written in such a way as to make it impossible for a child to read them as seen 'normally'; so he'll be forced to guess its identity by the attributes ... and once he has named the deities, the image is turned in the direction of the writing, to read the name." A supplementary volume was produced in the following year, with additional plates.
