LA GUERINIÈRE, François Robichon de.- Ecole de cavalerie, contenant la connoissance, l'instruction,

LA GUERINIÈRE, François Robichon de.- Ecole de cavalerie, contenant la connoissance, l'instruction, et la conservation du cheval.- A Paris: Jacques Collombat, 1733.- [8], 276, [8] p.: 1 frontispício grav., il.; 44 cm.- E., First folio edition of a monument to equestrian art, unanimously considered one of the most beautiful French editions of the 18th century. The first two small-format editions (in-16th) were published in 1729 and 1731, this being the third. The edition is illustrated with an engraved allegorical frontispiece representing the education of Achilles, with the bust of Louis XV in a medallion, 24 copperplate prints and three large allusive vignettes (140x235 mm), one at the beginning of each of the three parts of the work, opened on copper plate by the best engravers of the time (Cars, Aveline, Cocart, Audran, Lebas, Beauvais et Desplaces), according to originals by Charles Parrocel and Antoine Coquart. François Robichon de la Guérinière (1688-1751), recognized as the founder of the French riding school, began his activity as a squire to the Count d'Armagnac who, in 1715, commissioned him to found an equestrian academy in Paris. From 1730 until his death, with his brother Pierre as a partner, he directed the Académie des Tuilleries, with Prince Charles of Lorraine, chief equerry of King Louis XV, as its patron. We can consider the set of 24 plates into the following five groups: I – Double prints: 1. Le nom et la situation des parties extérieures du cheval (at the beginning of the text); 2. La course des têtes et de la bague (p. 166, with two small stains); 3. Maladies du cheval (p. 184). II - Technical plates: (A. Coquart — Borde): 4. La bride (p. 32); 5. Les différentes espèces de fers (p. 40); 6. La selle (p. 48). III - Teaching outlines (printed alongside the text, full page): 7. Plan d'une académie régulière (p. 58); 8. Plan de terre de l'épaule en dedans (p. 106); 9. Plan de terre de la croupe au mur (p. 110); 10. Le doubler (p. 122); 11. Plan de terre des changements de main (p. 123); 12. Les voltes" (p. 131); 13. Demi-voltes, passades et pirouettes (p. 134); 14. Le squellette du cheval (p. 173). IV - Plates of Parrocel et Audran (allures): 15 e 16. Les allures naturelles" (p. 74 et 74 bis); 17 e 18. Les allures artificielles (p. 78 et 81). V - Horsemen figures (originals from Parrocel): 19. L'épaule en dedans (p. 104); 20. Le marquis de Beauvilliers (p. 109); 21. Monsieur de Kraut (p. 114); 22. Mr. le Comte de St Aignan (p. 117); 23. M. le Marquis de La Ferté (p. 126); 24. S.A.S. Charles Prince de Nassau" (p. 143). Slightly cropped copy, but very clean and complete, with all the prints well placed and folded (the double prints with the outer edges folded). Two ex libris: Ex Bibliotecha J. H. Ancerhub (with silhouette, dated 1937); and Casa de Marialava - Dom Diogo. Contemporary full sheepskin binding, slightly worn, with heraldic book stamps, engraved in gold in the centre of the front cover, surrounded by the legend: Ex Bibliotheca Carlowitziana (Carl Adolf von Carlowitz, Prussian general, born in Großhartmannsdorf, in Saxony, 1771 -1837), library auctioned in 1930, in Berlin, by the antiques dealer Heinrich Rosenberg. Preserves the original marbled paper endpapers. Cohen, 588. Graesse, IV, p. 79. Brunet, III, 769. Mennessier de La Lance (Bibliographie hippique), II, p. 27.