James TISSOT

Illustrated edition with 10 hors-texte etchings (including a frontispiece) by painter and engraver James Tissot, stamped with the artist's red seal, one of 450 numbered copies on Holland paper.
Half chocolate brown shagreen binding, spine with four raised bands adorned with gilt garlands and decorated with gilt motifs enriched with two red mosaic morocco pieces depicting petals, marbled paper boards, endpapers and pastedowns, original wrappers and spine preserved, top edge gilt.
Handsome copy attractively bound.

Second edition by the same publisher as the first, which appeared in only 1000 copies as a deluxe issue. This new edition, following the author's wishes, was intended to be more accessible. It is illustrated with 365 compositions in lithography & engraving, in color and camaïeu, including 37 full-page color plates outside the text under tissue guards, 15 engravings and 22 lithographs. Very numerous monochrome vignettes in the text and decorated initial letters. The editing and printing are particularly fine.
Vulgate text in Latin with French translation facing.
Contemporary brown half morocco with corners, armorial of the Collège Stanislas in Paris on boards. Spine with raised bands decorated with grape cluster tools framed by foliage. Fillets on boards. Spine uniformly turned brown. 4 corners slightly bumped. Some light traces of rubbing. Handsome copy, perfectly fresh.
It was in 1888 that James Tissot had a sort of mystical crisis; this revelation of his faith led him to Palestine and Jerusalem, from which he brought back 365 watercolors with which he created this work, a true artist's book. This religious period of his work brought him immense fame; most of the originals are in the Library of Congress in the United States, purchased in 1902, the year of the painter's death, by the Brooklyn Museum.