King Louis XV Era French Religious Prayer Book

A rare King Louis XV Reign (circa 1755) French Catholic breviary, "Office for Holy Week", it is filled with liturgical prayers, scripture passages for confessions and communion of the Catholic Church and faith.

It holds two manuscript provenance: "Donne par Monsieur l'Abbe a Baptiste Blanchard, 10 avril 1809 (front endpaper) and "Blanchard 02 Mai 1816" on the back endpaper.

The fine red Morocco binding has a delicately gilt tooled frame "a l'oiseau". This consists of: flying birds alternating with fountains; thistle flowers are at the four corners, a wreath of flowers, buds and leaves framing the edge. Each of the tiny shapes were hand stamped with a hand made metal tool (dipped in hot gilt and pressed into the binding).

The spine bears the title plate in dark green Morocco leather "Semaine Sainte". All page edges are gilt tooled, the endpapers are of hand marbled paper. The text is both in French and Latin.

It is in very good condition in consideration of the extreme age (over 250 years old) There is a small round bit of leather missing at the left bottom spine and wear to the bottom spine edges. The gilt tooling remains bright and intact. The binding is sound.



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