Horse anatomy in contemporary colour

Lafosse, Etienne Guillaume. Cours d'hippiatrique, ou Traité complet de la médecine des chevaux, orne de soixante & cinq planches gravées avec soin.

€ 25,000.00

First edition of this remarkable book on horse anatomy: the famous "Veterinary Course, or Complete Treatise on Equine Medicine", the principal work of the French veterinarian P. E. Lafosse (1738-1820). Lafosse had considerable anatomical skill, coupled with a profound knowledge of horses and equitation, and his work ranks with Stubbs in the artistic realization of equine anatomy. "Ce livre est un véritable monument élevé à l'hippologie. Papier, impression, dessin, gravure sont également soignés. Il coûta, dit-on, plus de 70.000 livres à l'auteur" (Mennessier de la Lance). The plates, rendered with great skill by B. Michel Adam, F. A. Aveline, C. Baquoy, Benard, Ch. Beulier, L. Bosse, Prevost and others after Harguinier, Lafosse and Saullier, earned the production a long-standing reputation as the finest book in this branch of science (cf. Brunet).

Some light wear to binding, a handful of minor closed tears or repairs to folding plates. With the bookplate of Jean Stern (1875-1962), a Jewish-French fencer whose mother was a the French scion of the Rothschilds, and who competed at the 1908 Summer Olympics for France. A fine, wide-margined copy of this magnificent work.