[MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS CATALOGUE]. Le Musee du Conservatoire National de Musique. Catalogue raisonne des Instruments de cette collection

Paris: Firmin-Didot, 1875. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good. Large 8vo. ix, [3], 145 pp. Bound in contemporary French half calf over comb-marbled boards, comb-marbled endpapers, sprinkled edges (minor wear along extremities; lower left corner of front cover a little scraped). ¶ Presentation copy from the author to M. Anatole Gruger ("hommage cordial de l'auteur"). This is the catalogue of the Musee du Conservatoire National de Musique, which describes an extraordinary array of musical instruments, including Paganini instruments, and is at the same time a small encyclopedia, engaging and instructive. ¶ Gustave Chouquet (1819-1886) was born in The Hague into a life of music and music criticism. In 1864, the Academy of Fine Arts awarded him the Bordin Prize for a history of music from the fourteenth century until the end of the seventeenth. In 1868, he won another award on a history of dramatic music in France from its origins. In 1870 he received the Cross of the Legion of Honor. In 1871, Chouquet was appointed curator of the Musical Instruments Conservatory. Thanks to his enthusiasm, tact, and ingenuity, he managed - despite the limited space and limited budgetary resources - to create a museum of surprising quality and comprehensiveness: by 1875 it numbered nearly eleven hundred pieces, a remarkable achievement then, as now. (Source: "Courrier de l'art," Sixieme Annee, 1886, p. 72).