Julien LE BLANT

First Edition, one of the review copies service, second edition mention on the fake title page.
Binding in full brown paper, smooth back, title piece of morocco chocolate brown, blankets and back preserved, gilded head, binding signed Dreneau.
Ex libris manuscript of Emile Henriot at the head of a guard.
Autograph signed by Henri de Montherlant Emile Henriot.

Edition printed with 500 copies, ours is one of the few copies on Japan containing three stages of the engravings, the “tirage de tête”. Preface by Léo Claretie.
Work illustrated with 9 compositions by Julien Le Blant engraved by etching by Louis Muller.
Our copy includes the label of the publisher Lucien Durvand at the justification, with the words “reliure unique” “unique binding”.
Art Deco binding in full black morocco, spine in five compartments decorated with honeysuckle flowers inlaid with brown morocco whose stems are intertwined in panels, place and date at the foot, boards richly decorated with a blind tooling stamped fillet framing a significant interlacing of honeysuckle inlaid with bronze-coloured morocco filled with flowers in tan morocco holders and purple morocco petals, pastedown endpapers lined with black morocco decorated with stippling evoking a double and fine gilt chain framing a large plate of pink morocco adorned with a rich garland stamped with gold and bronze-coloured, green, yellow, red and black mosaic morocco framing a decoration of two, vertical eight-point stars richly adorned with a very complex motif in bronze-coloured, yellow, red and black mosaic morocco with significant gold-stamped blind tooling and spirals in the Oriental style, blue silk endpapers, following endpapers in marbled paper, double gilt fillet on the leading edges, gilt blind tooling on the spine-ends, cover boards preserved, all edges gilt, binding signed with initials at the foot of the first board by Lucien Durvand.
Magnificent copy remarkably set in an Art Deco binding by Lucien Durvand.

First edition of this auction catalogue held at Hôtel Drouot on 23 March 1896, one of 800 numbered copies on Marais laid paper, the only printing with 110 Japan copies.
Work illustrated with 2 engravings and drawings by J. Le Blant.
Two small marginal tears to the front cover, otherwise a rare and handsome copy.