Les Fables de La Fontaine: Livres VII, VIII, IX

Abstract

This unbound Volume III consists of 168 pages in eight page segments gathered in a portfolio of boards and enclosed in a box. Each fable begins on a new page. The frontispiece seems a fanciful view of the new world: sailing ship, monkey, parrot, butterfly, astrolabe (?), icon, and iguana. As in Volume II, after a frontispiece and title-page there is nothing but the three fable books. "The Coach and the Fly" is delightfully done: the fly hovers over the tonsured monk's head (27). MM is highly expressive (29). Chièze seems to me to picture the cobbler in the midst not of his singing but of his worrying about his hidden money (56). The bear protecting his friend the gardener seems ready not to smash but to throw the rock (72). The image emphasizes the scale difference between elephant and rat (85). "The Wolf and the Hunter" presents three dead animals well (114). Contrary to most artists, Chièze shows what it would have been like for a pumpkin rather than an acorn to fall on the "philosopher's" head (128). The last fable offers an extra design, smaller than the others, within the text: one rat pulls another as a cart to carry an egg (166). Delightful stuff! Not in Bodemann.