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Photo of La Pyrothecnie Pratique ou Dialogues Entre un Amateur des feux d’Artifice pour le Spectacle et un Jeune homme curieux de s’en instruire. by [GRIGNON & LALAING].

[GRIGNON & LALAING].

La Pyrothecnie Pratique ou Dialogues Entre un Amateur des feux d’Artifice pour le Spectacle et un Jeune homme curieux de s’en instruire.

Paris, Rue Dauphine, chez L. Cellot & Jombert fils jeune,

Book sold

8vo. (200 x 123 mm.) Contemporary full parchment, red morocco and gilt label to the backstrip; pp. xxviii, [2], 340, illustrated with seven folding, engraved plates, with over 100 instructive figures - the explanation of these figures is supplied on pp. 330-339, one folding table giving the composition and the dimensions of different fireworks; neat contemporary ink ownership signature to the verso of the final engraved plate ‘Demigieu 1780/5th 10’; occasional light embrowning to the margins, a small scratch to the upper edge of the front board, otherwise a fresh, handsomely bound and well-preserved copy with bright, clear impressions of the plates.

Sole edition of a rare work on a wide range of recreational fireworks, written in the form of twenty-six dialogues between the young Count of L[aLaing] and his instructor, the ‘amateur’ G[rignon]. The volume includes an index of the various dialogues.

The work is divided into four parts and covers all aspects of preparing and producing fireworks and the different apparatus to be used with them: fusées volantes, gerbes de feu, chandelles romaines, courantins, pots-à-feux, bombes and ballons, illuminations, galeries de feu, fontaines, soleils tournans etc.

Chris Philip - A Bibliography of Firework Books p.66 (Winchester, 1985)

Stock number: 1410