HERALDIQUE. German armorial with copper engravings (some han - Lot 75

HERALDIQUE. German armorial with copper engravings (some hand-colored) and colored drawings, mounted on modern laid paper, bound in an in-folio volume, sow skin with cold-stamped decoration (18th-century replacement binding). It was apparently produced by or for a member of the Baumeister family. PROVENANCE: THE ALCHIMIST AND APOLOGIST OF TRADITIONAL SCIENCES RENE ALLEAU (bookplate and notes in several works). Trained as an engineer, René Alleau (1917-2013) turned to esotericism and wrote his thesis on 17th-century alchemy under the supervision of Gaston Bachelard. At the same time, he became a disciple and friend of alchemist Eugène Canseliet. From October 1952 to June 1953, he gave a series of twenty-five lectures on Hermeticism, which proved a great success and led to a close relationship with André Breton, a regular listener. He went on to direct several publishing collections, including Denoël's vast Bibliotheca hermetica (1970-1976), contributed to Encyclopedia universalis and, in 1973, co-directed the international Cerisy symposium on René Guéon and the current state of traditional thought. He published a large number of works and personal articles on esotericism (particularly alchemy), in which he was keen to follow a middle path away from the excesses of both scientism and occultism.