La Perdrix: a Plate from the Fables of La Fontaine

Paris: Chez Desaing & Saillant and Durand, 1759. Good. Engraved by Laurent Cars. Some staining and soil to margins, worming at lower right margin; mild toning. Image: 28.3 by 21 cm (11 by 8.25 inches); sheet: 35.5 by 27.5 cm (14x10.75 inches). The work was edited by C. P. de Monthenault d'Egly and published in Paris by Chez Desaing & Saillant and Durand between 1755 and 1759. The engravings were by Cochin, Tardieu, Prevost, Chedel, Lempereur and others after the original artwork of Jean-Baptiste Oudry.

Copper-plate engraved by Laurent Cars after Jean-Baptiste Oudry. This illustration is from Jean de La Fontaine's Fables Choisies, mises en vers.

Background Information:
Jean de La Fontaine (1621 - 1695) was a French fabulist and one of the most widely read French poets of the 17th century. He is known above all for his Fables, which provided a model for subsequent fabulists across Europe and numerous alternative versions in France, and in French regional languages. Jean de La Fontaine collected fables from a wide variety of sources, both Western and Eastern, and adapted them into French free verse.

They were issued under the general title of Fables in several volumes from 1668 to 1694 and are considered classics of French literature. Humorous, nuanced and ironical, they were originally aimed at adults but then entered the educational system and were required learning for school children.