GRESSET (Jean-Baptiste-Louis) Paris, Saugrain,, [1794]... Selected works by Gresset. In-12 (13,9 x 8 cm), green morocco, framed with gilt fillets on the covers with gilt irons at the corners, spine ribbed and decorated with gilt motifs, interior framed with gilt lace with small irons, marbled edges under gilt (Cuzin). 174 p. Edition decorated with a portrait by Jean-Baptiste-Louis Gresset and 5 hors-texte engravings by Duhamel, Dupréel and Simonet after Moreau le Jeune. Copy on wove paper with the figures in two states: before and with the letter. Copy enriched with an autograph letter signed by Gresset, Amiens, 24 March 1777 (1 p.). He apologises for not having been able to follow up an order sent 8 months earlier, not having received it, "this act of your benevolence had been hidden from me at the time, Sir [...] and without the event of the new order you granted me for my pension of one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five there is great reason to believe that this regrettable discretion and this beautiful silence [...] would have extended to the end of the world". He took the opportunity to explain and apologise for his letter to Mr de Cuvilliès about the non-payment of his pension "which I explained to Mr Cuvilliès in the uncertainty in which I was". The letter may refer to François de Cuvilliés le Jeune (1731 - 1777), a German architect and engraver. He studied at the Royal Academy of Architecture in Paris. As for the addressee, it could be Henri Léonard Jean Baptiste Bertin. Indeed, following a lengthy correction of a treatise on agriculture, Gresset received a royal pension of 800 livres at the end of his life from Bertin, then Minister of State. A fine copy, very well established by Cuzin, in a lined binding with counter-panels decorated with small-iron lace (iron with bird, butterfly, etc.). Witnesses preserved in gutter and tail, light foxing on some leaves. Provenance : - Léon Rattier (ex-libris). - Grace Whitney Hoff (bookplate). - Georges Petit, Château de Grandvoir. Bibliography : Brunet, II , 1735. Cohen, 462. Sander, XVIII, 862. Wogue, J.-B.-L. Gresset, p. 298-299.