Raphael's Bible - 200 pages of plates based on Raphaël's work

I have Raphaël's Bible with art based on his work collected from the late 1700s to early 1800s. From what I found out, this is a unique and one-of-a-kind really rare book that contains 200 pages of engravings / plates outlined on thick laid paper. Pages measure 29cm x 22cm. The bottom left text reveals that the original artwork was created by the renowned artist Raphael ("Raphael pinx"), right side text provides the name of the author who based their work on this art. Centre title is displayed in three languages: French, German, English. There is no title page so publisher and exact year is unknown.

If you try to google this book or look it up on ViaLibri you will not find any traces. Worldcat shows only 1 copy of a similar book but larger dimensions and less page plates (54) in one of the London's Libraries. That copy is also missing the title page so I'm not sure if that's coincidence or not.

Some of the artists: Michel Olivier Lebas (Le Bas), E. Lingee, Devilliers Jeune
and more

More pictures and video can be seen here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ZMCkYopSnzJSfk5ZSDuCpCaR8Oroj_cK

I'm planning to put this on auction but would first like to know how much is this book worth?

Googling individual pages only some can be found and those ones are selling from between £50 to £250. Other copies are not for sale and can be found only in The British Museum.

Would anybody know anything more about this?

 

Sometimes times publisher and date can be at the very end of the book. Nothing there?

I see a dealer online offering a print of the same format and saying it's from an 1844 bible.

If you are finding individual prints online, that suggests this is one of those instances where dealers try to maximize profits by stripping out the prints and selling them individually.

 

@2manycats
@Ex Libris

 

Probably about right. It's new enough not to distinguish between "s" in the middle of a word and "s" at the end.

 

I cannot add much to the earlier comments. The binding looks 18th or early 19th century. The engravings as well. I cannot find a good reference on the net.

 

Thank you everybody. There is nothing "textual" (either front or back) that would tell published and year.

Some of the pages / engravings can be found / seen here: https://www.galerie-napoleon.com/product_info.php?products_id=6047

What do you reckon what do I do with this book?

 

for now.....more research !

 

There is another way to learn the date of the book via the watermark. Try to shine a light behind a page and you will see that (if the book is actually around 1800) a watermark will appear. Sometimes you can learn the papermaker this way.

 

I wonder whether this book is a compilation of prints that existed separately, all based on works attributed to Raphael? That could explain why another copy has not been found. The book would have probably been bound contemporaneously with the prints themselves. Probably there is no easy way to tell whether it is this, or whether it was originally a book that later sellers took apart.

By the way, the names found in the lower right side of each one would be the engravers' names.

It's very nice!