[THE ROXBURGHE CLUB] WRIGHTSMAN, JAYNE; with a preface by NEIL MACGREGOR. Placets de l'officier Desbans.
New York: Privately printed for members of The Roxburghe Club, 2007. Limited edition of 342 copies. Publisher's red cloth, gilt, blue silk ribbon. 14 1/8 x 9 3/16 inches (36 x 23.5 cm); 14, [48] pp., a foreword and a scholarly essay, followed by a facsimile of an eighteenth century French manuscript, illustrated with 15 reproductions of drawings by Gabriel Saint-Aubin, and a few head- and tail-pieces. A miniscule faint spot to rear board, otherwise pristine.

Jayne Wrightstman's Roxburghe Club publication, reproducing a fascinating illustrated manuscript from her collection. The Placets de l'officier Desbans, made in Paris in 1775, was a petition for a promotion that was commissioned by a junior army officer and presented to the king and queen. However, "this petition willfully and persuasively strays far beyond its brief, elevating his minor professional disappointment to the status of national epic and his petition to a work of art... The trivial and the momentous mesh in hilarious earnestness... a mock-heroic masterpiece" (Preface, p. 11).

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