NEWCASTLE, William Cavendish, Duke of (1592-1676) and Gaspard de SAUNIER
Méthode Et Invention Nouvelle De Dresser Les Chevaux. Second Edition.
London: J. Brindley, 1737. Folio. (17 7/8 x 11 1/4 inches). iv, (viii), (i) blank, 236 pp. Additional double-page engraved title (with imprint: Anvers, 1658), engraved headpiece to dedication, woodcut initials, head and tailpieces and illustrations, 42 double-page engraved plates.
Contemporary brown morocco spine richly gilt red morocco lettering pieces. Marbled endpapers.
"The illustrations are among the most beautiful to ever grace equestrian literature": Cavendish's 1737 classic on the schooling of horses, with 42 splendid double-page plates
"England, though often considered a country of horse lovers, actually only produced one early master of classical riding. William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle, was a royalist who lived in exile until the restoration of King Charles II. During his exile he opened a riding school in Belgium. He wrote La Methode et Invention Nouvelle de Dresser les Chevaux… The illustrations are among the most beautiful to ever grace equestrian literature (Deanna Ramsay). This was the first of Cavendishs two important books on the subject of breeding and training horses, translated into French from his English manuscript and published in Antwerp in two issues, 1657 and 1658 (with many of the 1657 title pages having been altered by hand to also read 1658). This first printing was largely destroyed by fire in the booksellers shop (Brunet), and is all but impossible to acquire. Offered here is the second edition of Cavendishs first book, a work long cherished by bibliophiles for the excellence of its typography and the quality of its illustrations, a work esteemed by countless generations of horsemen and revered by such masters as La Guérinière, Comte dAure and Steinbrecht, and a landmark of equestrian (W.C. Steinkraus) that has been called still the only really outstanding work on the subject written by an Englishman (R.S. Toole-Stott). In it Cavendish discusses a wide variety of equine subjects, including the recognition of the age and disposition of a horse, the characteristics of various types of horses (e.g. Spanish, the Barb, the English horse, the Arabian), methods of maintenance, and instructions on proper riding. You must in all Airs follow the strength, spirit, and disposition of the horse, and do nothing against nature; for art is but to set nature in order, and nothing else. Of the 42 wonderful double-page plates after Abraham van Diepenbeke, 24 depict the multiple stages Cavendish and his assistant Captain Mazin employed in training complicated maneuvers. The quality of the impressions even surpasses those of the original edition (W.C. Steinkraus). This 1737 second edition of La Methode et Invention Nouvelle is the first to be published in England, with engravings pulled from the original 1658 copperplates, acquired by Jean Brindley. With wood-engraved head- and tailpieces and initial letters. Text in French.
See Huth, 23; Podeschi 26 and 49; Lowndes, 1663; Wing N884-87; Brunet I, 1700; Graesse II, 93; Mellon Books on the Horse and Horsemanship (1783) p. 49; Mennessier de la Lance II, p. 250; Nissen ZBI 848.
Item #40577
Price: $16,000.00