Lot 78: FEYERABEND, Franz (1755-1800). [Die eidgenössischen Truppen. Costumes militaires des cantons

FEYERABEND, Franz (1755-1800). [Die eidgenössischen Truppen. Costumes militaires des cantons de la Suisse]. Basel: Franz Feyerabend, 1792.

Broadsheets (364 x 245mm). 26 etched plates by and after Feyerabend, hand coloured in wash and finished in gouache by Feyerabend, each captioned below in German with the name and regiment of the subject and with an armorial vignette. Titled in manuscript on flyleaf 'Die eidgenössischen Zuzüger in Basel 1792'. (Occasional light spotting or browning, some plates trimmed across platemarks, not affecting images.) 20th-century vellum-backed colour-printed patterned boards, vellum tips (lightly marked). Provenance: erased inkstamp on flyleaf -- monogram inkstamp 'CT' on flyleaves.

FEYERABEND'S CELEBRATED SUITE OF PLATES OF SWISS MILITARY COSTUMES: 'CET SUITE EST DE LA PLUS GRANDE RARETé' (Colas). Franz Feyerabend came of a family of artists (the landscape artists Augustin and Samuel Feyerabend were his brothers, and, in turn, his son Johann Rudolf Feyerabend also became an artist), and abandoned his initial studies of sculpture to pursue a career as a portraitist and landscape artist (and later caricaturist), who worked in oils, watercolour and gouache, as well as print media. This suite of 26 plates -- which is one of his best-known works -- demonstrates his ability to combine these techniques to great effect: they were printed with a lightly-etched outline, and then heavily coloured in both wash and gouache by Feyerabend, creating an effect closer to that of an original gouache than of a print. The first plate bears the explanatory text 'Die nachfolgende Blätter sind Abbildungen von den ersten Zuzügern in Basel im Jahr 1792' beneath the caption, and the plates show uniformed soldiers of various ranks and gives their name and regiment and its canton beneath, with a vignette etching of the canton's arms. THE COMPLETE SUITE OF PLATES IS OF GREAT RARITY, as Colas states: no copy can be traced in Anglo-American book auction records since 1902, nor in German book auction records since 1960. The work was reproduced by Emile Volmar as Officiers et soldats des différents contingents des cantons suisses réunis à Bâle en 1792, dessinés et coloriés... d'après les originaux de F. Feyerabend. Colas 1058; Hiler p. 312; Lonchamp 1042.

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