First edition.
Full red morocco binding, round spine with five raised bands decorated with gilt fleurons, slight rubbing on the caps, double frame of blind-stamped gilt fillets on the covers, with fleurons at the corners of the inner frame, edges slightly blunt, marbled paper endpapers and back covers, gilt edges and heads, very elegant 19th-century binding ‘a la Du Seuil’ signed Quinet on the first endpaper.
Rare first edition of Chamblain de Marivaux's first theatrical success, The Surprise of Love, published four years before The Second Surprise of Love. This play, performed in the spring of 1722 before being published the following year in 1723, already contains all the essence of Marivaux's style, all its subtle gallantry. According to the Romantic poet Theophile Gautier, it is the author's masterpiece.
First edition, no copies on deluxe paper issued.
3/4 brown half morocco binding, spine with color restoration, five raised bands framed in black, gilt date at foot, boards, endpapers and pastedowns in wood-grain style marbled paper, covers and spine preserved, gilt edges, an elegant binding signed Alix.
Manuscript ex-libris in black ink and a discreet restoration to the upper right corner of the first endpaper.
First edition, one of the review copies.
Some light foxing to the spine and along the edges of the covers, a pleasing copy given the poor quality of the paper.
Inscribed by Raymond Queneau to Dominique Aury.
First edition on ordinary paper with the correct colophon dated 22 June 1999.
Pleasant copy despite two light spots on the right margin of the lower cover.
Inscribed and signed by Jean Echenoz to Jean-Pierre Métais.
First edition, one of 85 copies on pur fil paper, from the deluxe issue after 26 on Hollande.
Spine and covers slightly sunned, marginal tears to the covers and at the foot of the spine.
Rare copy with full margins.
First edition on ordinary paper.
A moving and appealing copy.
Fine signed autograph presentation inscription from Dominique de Roux to his brother: "Pour mon cher Xavier père et maître des circonvolutions de ce récit. Et sans qui la vie n'aurait aucun sens. Affection fraternelle. Dominique."
First edition on ordinary paper.
Small pale dampstains on the spine.
Inscribed, signed and dated by Maurice Genevoix to Nicole and Philippe Derez.
First edition, one of 45 numbered copies on Vélin du Marais, ours one of 15 lettered copies not for sale, the only copies on deluxe paper.
Attractive copy despite a faint shadow along the margin of the upper cover.
First edition, one of 160 numbered copies on pur fil, the only deluxe paper issue.
Half red shagreen binding with corners, spine with four raised bands framed by black fillets, gilt date at foot, boards covered in moiré-effect paper, marbled endpapers and pastedowns, original wrappers and spine preserved, top edge gilt.
A handsome copy in an attractive binding.
A substantially cropped print bearing the same penciled number on the back of our photograph (11214), is in the Reutlinger archives at the Bibliothèque nationale de France (Album Reutlinger de portraits divers vol. 53, p.3). We have been unable to find any other examples of this photograph in other public collections. A similar photograph belatedly dedicated to Maurice Chevalier went on sale in 2008.
A beautiful, sultry shot of Colette probably taken the year of her banned dance show "Rêve d'Egypte" at the Moulin Rouge where she shared the bill – and a scandalous kiss – with her cross-dressing aristocrat lover Missy.
"Colette was a nude dancer, which at the time meant that she [...] draped herself in vaporous veils, concealing part of her anatomy under animal skins" (Paula Dumont). Colette had already used animal skins, hugging her figure in this picture, as a sensual costume in Charles Van Lerberghe's Pan, accompanied on stage by Lugné-Poe and Georges Wague. This was the first time anyone had dared to go without a flesh-colored body suit. Justifying her choice, she went on to say: "I want to dance naked if the body suit bothers me and humiliates my plasticity".
At the time of this photograph, in 1907, Colette was performing in countless shows, following her debut two years earlier in Nathalie Clifford Barney's Sapphic Salon where Mata Hari also danced. For Colette, dance was synonymous with emancipation in more ways than one - as a means of sustenance and liberation of her body which finally belonged to her after her separation from her abusive husband Willy in 1906. Her undulating, almost gestureless dance was linked by contemporary critics to that of Loïe Fuller and Isadora Duncan; her greatest success remained "La Chair", a risqué mime show she performed two hundred times in Paris and was subsequently produced with a new cast in New York's Manhattan Opera House. It was also in the halls of Parisian dance venues that Colette flaunted herself freely on the arm of her lovers. Her scandalous union with Missy, the virile Marquise de Morny who accompanied her on stage in male costumes, contributed to the fame of her performances.
This is probably the rarest photograph of Colette taken by Reutlinger who also photographed her draped in Grecian style or wearing her costume from "Le Rêve d'Egypte".
A rare visual testimony to a revolution in dance costume brought about by Colette, a key figure in twentieth-century artistic and literary Paris.
Original autograph manuscript by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, one page in black ink on a yellow paper sheet, numerous corrections, and rewritings.
Exceptional working manuscript of a passage from the original French version of Wind Sand and Stars [Terre des Hommes] from chapter VI "Dans le désert", a magnificent ode to the barren wilderness of deserts doomed to disappear due to the inevitable development of the industrial age. This section from the original French novel was removed for the English version translated by Galantière and remains unpublished in English. Moreover, the final two paragraphs of the manuscript are unpublished in the original French version. Saint-Exupéry recalls magnificent memories of liberating adversity and cherished "dissidence" he experienced in the heart of Mauritanian and Libyan deserts.
This heavily corrected state of the text is the true genesis of Saint-Exupéry's Pulitzer Prize winning masterpiece: he reworked and rearranged here his memories published as articles (reportages) in Paris-Soir magazine in 1938. Some sentences ("What does it matter what you find at the pole if you walk in a state of enchantment") remaining in the published version are variants of one of his reportages, present in the manuscript among redacted and unpublished sentences obscured by pen strokes.
This manuscript indicates an early writing stage not mentioned in the “Notes et variantes” of the comprehensive Pléiade edition.
The passage is originally from his fifth article for Paris-Soir, entitled "La magie du désert c'est ça" ("This is the magic of the desert ") from November 14, 1938 published with some of the changes made in this manuscript and other later corrections at the end of the sixth chapter of Terre des Hommes. The central theme of the text, dissidence, is mentioned in the very first sentence of the manuscript and would later become the title of the passage indicated on the typed proofs. This leitmotiv is steeped in nostalgia, with vivid descriptions of fleeting moments of freedom during the writer's escapades in the desert: "The horizons [crossed out : places] towards which we ran one after the other faded away ['died out one after the other' in the published text], like those insects once trapped by lukewarm hands ['which lose their color once trapped in lukewarm hands ' idem]. But there was no illusion ['he who pursued them was not the victim of illusion' idem]. We were not mistaken, when we walked like this from miracle to miracle ['we were after these discoveries' idem]. Nor was the Sultan of the Thousand and One Nights, who ran one morning ['pursued a matter so subtle' idem] [sentence deleted], that his beautiful captives, one by one, died at dawn in his arms, having lost, scarcely touched, the gold of their wings"
It conveys an acute awareness of the end of an era, marked by the bankruptcy of Aéropostale and his grave plane accident in Guatemala. Saint-Exupéry takes refuge in the memory of the rebel-filled deserts of Mauritania whose charm wore off with the passing of time: "But there is no more dissidence. Cap Juby, Cisneros, Puerto Cansado, Dora, Smarra, there is no longer any [word struck out] mystery." It is followed by descriptions of the lands he and his fellow aviators flew over: "For the pure shell powder sand and the forbidden palm groves, gave us their most precious gift: they offered only an hour of fervor, and we were the ones who dwelled in it" The story is told in plural, honoring the memory of Guillaumet and Mermoz, his friends and famous aviators who fell from the sky. The manuscript also contains a prophetic remark on the deserts soon to be exploited for their resources: "We fed on the magic of the sands, others perhaps will dig their oil wells there, and benefit from their [deleted: this] goods." We can already see the businessman character in The Little Prince, an early manifestation of his opinion on the excesses of human progress.
These words on a thin sheet of yellow paper represent a crucial early stage of his masterpiece. Saint-Exupéry first assembled the work under its original title, Etoiles par grand vent, published in France as Terre des Hommes in February 1939. We know of another sheet of paper in this color with the same types of corrections, also not mentioned in the Pléiade edition of the complete works. It shows the more direct handwriting of a first draft - the sheet undoubtedly dating from the first combination of his journalistic reportages that would later become the novel. Virtually every sentence is modified (words crossed out, words or expressions rearranged in the sentence) not systematically appearing in the published version: "What we see here is a very subtle work of reworking texts that function in very different ways depending on the subject and are clearly oriented towards that recreation of Man to which the book invites us" (Saint-Exupéry. Œuvres complètes, Gallimard, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, 1994, vol. I, p. 1009)
A precious extract from Terre des Hommes unpublished in the English version Wind, Sand and Stars - Saint-Exupéry's great humanist adventure and novel which brought him international renown. This rare folio riddled with erasures, rewrites, and corrections bears witness to the various stages of his writing process.
Rare first edition of Hector Berlioz's first book.
Some restorations to the top spine-end, volume label on the spine of the second volume not fully visible, boards strengthened or lined (first board of the first volume), some stains on the first boards of both volumes.
Fine condition inside almost without any foxing.
Our copy is housed in green half shagreen chemises and slipcases, marbled paper boards, slipcases lined with the same shagreen, gilt titles and dates on the spine.
Rare.
First edition, for which there was not printed any grand papier (deluxe) copies.
Publisher's binding in full grey cloth.
Illustrations.
Copy complete of its dust jacket illustrated by Jimmy Ernst, the dust jacket being in a poor state with several tears and corners missing.
Very precious handwritten dedication signed by Harriet Janis to Boris Vian: “To Boris Vian with Paris greetings for Rudi Blesh & myself, Harriet Janis. May 1953.”
« Hierbei sollst du meiner gedenken, denn alles habe ich ernstlich gemeint. R. W. »
[At this you shall remember me, for I have meant everything seriously].
Three original childhood photographs of Maurice Béjart, and his birth announcement
[after 1927] | 12.2 x 17.2 cm| three photographs and a card
Three original photographs of Maurice Béjart as a child beside his mother, taken in Mougins.
We attach the birth announcement, dated 1 January 1927, printed with his name “Maurice Jean Berger.”
Provenance: Maurice Béjart's personal archives.
Personal diary handwritten by Maurice Béjart, written in a 1969 diary celebrating the centenary of the birth of Mahatma Gandhi.
52 handwritten leaves, written in red and blue pen in a spiral-bound notebook. This diary features amongst Béjart's very rare, privately owned manuscripts, the choreographer's archives being shared between his house in Brussels, the Béjart foundation in Lausanne and the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie.
The choreographer Maurice Béjart's diary written during the year 1969. An extremely rare collection of thoughts, questions and introspections from the point of view of Hinduism and Buddhist wisdom, which Béjart adopts following his first trip to India in 1967.
The diary is an emblematic testimony of the indo-hippie era of the 1960s, spiritual and artistic renaissance that inspired numerous ballets of the choreographer (Messe pour le temps présent, Bhakti, Les Vainqueurs).
A selection from this diary was published by Maurice Béjart in the second volume of his memoirs (La Vie de Qui ? Flammarion, 1996).
During the year 1969, Béjart wrote daily notes in a diary published in memory of Mahatma Gandhi. Fascinated by Hindu mysticism since his trip to India in 1967, he filled in this spiritual journal with numerous mantras and prayers (“Krishna guide my chariot, the light is at the end of the path. OM”; “Buddha is everywhere”; “Let God enter, but how to open the door”) and he calls upon the Hindu deities as well as the Bodhisattvas Mañju?r? et T?r? – soothing figures of the Buddhist pantheon. Béjart's “Indian period” was particularly rich in choreographic masterpieces, the progress of which can be followed in his diary (Baudelaire at the beginning of the year, the first performance of the Vainqueurs in Brussels and the Quatre fils Aymon in Avignon, as well as the filming and screening of his Indian ballet Bhakti). At the crossroads of New Age and the hippie movement, Béjart's “conversion” is symptomatic of an era that refuses progress and has a thirst for spirituality: “Calcutta is not India, but our western face. It is not religion or traditional thinking that is to blame, but capitalism. India, a rich country before colonisation.” The Beatle's visit to the guru Maharishi's ?shram and Ravi Shankar's concert at Woodstock in 1969 marks the beginning of a real western passion for Indian music and culture, which was decisive in Béjart's ballets at the time.
In Béjart's eyes, India presents itself as a place where art and ancestral traditions have not suffered the perversions of positivity. In his creations he seeks to express the spirit of a culture that intimately links the body and the spirit, and in which dance plays a major cosmic and spiritual role. Included in his ballets were Indian dance systems and Vedic songs that were discovered thanks to Alain Daniélou – in 1968 he opened the Messe pour temps présent with a long vînâ solo that lasted fifteen minutes: “Béjart is in his Hindu quarter-hour. And over there, Hindu quarter hours, can last for hours...” commented Jean Vilar, director of the Avignon festival. A wave of Indian fashion also passes through the costumes of the Ballet du XXe siècle company: large silk trousers, tunics, jewellery and oriental eyes. In the diary, Béjart states that there is “no truth without yoga,” an art discovered from an Indian master that can be found in many of his ballets in the form of dance exercises on the barre. He also decides to make Bhakti “an act of Faith” by filming himself the ballet choreographer, and during the summer he prepares the Vainqueurs, an unusual meeting between Wagner and traditional Indian ragas.
Beyond the prolific artist, we also discover the choreographer's troubled personality in the diary, in the grips of doubt and melancholy: “vague state of physical weightlessness and moral emptiness. Lethargy or laziness. Weakness. Dizziness. Drowsiness. Unconsciousness.” Despite successes, Béjart will try to calm his fragile state by meditation and the teachings of Indian prophets and brahmins, which can be found throughout the pages of this diary (Ramana Maharshi, Swami Ramdas, the Dalai-Lama, Apollonius of Tyana).
His sometimes thwarted romances with his favourite dancer Jorge Donn monopolise him and plunge him into anxiety – on the eve of the Vainqueurs premiere, he writes, “Before dress rehearsal. Chaos. [Jorge] Donn disappeared. Tara absent. Me lost.” Torn between enjoyment and self-control, he tours at a frantic pace with his company Ballet du XXe siècle, first to the Netherlands, then to Milan, Turin and Venice in Italy: “I leave Venice completely enslaved to laziness, to sex and to ease, and yet a strange well-being of the brute who drank and fucked.” However, these happy moments did not go so far as to satisfy Béjart, for whom “Joy has a dead aftertaste” despite the “life of work and discipline” that he establishes during this richly creative year. At the end of his life, Béjart will look back with humour on his Indian escapades and the resolutely sombre tone of his diary: “I can't stop myself laughing at this idiot who cries and who moans, even though he created a great number of ballets [...] When I think that at the end of this diary in 1969 I was firmly considering retirement!”
An extremely rare document retracing the meeting of the East and the West in Maurice Béjart's personal life and choreographic work. This diary embodies an era of counter-culture and cultural syncretism that had long-lasting effects on avant-garde European ballet.
Autograph manuscript signed by the painter and writer Jacques-Émile Blanche, entitled « Serge de Diaghileff ». Five leaves written in black ink, with numerous corrections in blue. Autograph foliation in black ink, later foliation in blue pencil. Leaf 4, originally in two parts, was joined with a strip of adhesive affixed to the verso.
Crossed-out passages and corrections.
A very fine funeral oration by Jacques-Émile Blanche for his friend Serge Diaghilev, director of the celebrated Ballets Russes.
The painter and writer Jacques-Émile Blanche pays tribute to the genius of Serge Diaghilev, shortly after his death in Venice in 1929. Chosen as a « godfather » to the Ballets Russes, the painter followed closely the choreographer’s work as a regenerator of the performing arts and applauded Stravinsky’s Sacre du printemps. He also produced numerous portraits of the Ballets Russes dancers, which he presented at the Venice Biennale in 1912.
At the beginning of the century, Diaghilev’s company, the « Ballets Russes », had dazzled audiences across Europe with a rich and vigorous art which, moving from one new form to another, remained at the avant-garde for twenty years. The painter recalls his first encounter with Diaghilev, a figure of undeniable charm: « j'éprouvai qu'on ne pouvait lui résister. Son autorité, ses caprices d'enfant gâté, on les subissait, tant son intelligence éclatait dans ses paroles d'adolescent. Il ressemblait, alors, assuraient ses compatriotes, au Tzar Alexandre Ier ». He evokes the impresario’s troubled existence and his dazzling triumphs with the Ballets Russes: « Eh quoi ! vingt ans d'expériences, vingt ans d'incomparables spectacles - et la perfection d'une technique de plus en plus déconcertante, ne nous conseilla-t-il pas d'accorder crédit illimité à notre cher ami, le plus artiste des hommes - et somme toute, le plus sûr de soi-même, malgré l'extravagance, le paradoxe de la vie qu'il menait et qu'il imposait à sa troupe ? ».
Blanche highlights Diaghilev’s taste for French culture, which he shared with his friends and collaborators. This passion, inherited from Russian aristocratic circles, made him « Le plus parisien des cosmopolites, croyant au prestige de Paris comme un boulevardier du second Empire ». We also learn of Diaghilev’s unrealized plan to travel to Moscow and stage ballets in the young USSR, then regarded as a land of political and artistic avant-garde. The letter closes with a moving evocation of Venice, where Diaghilev passed away on 19 August 1929:
« voici qu'un funèbre cortège de gondoles accompagne sur la lagune torride [...] les restes de notre cher camarade. Il est bien - puisqu'il devait nous quitter - qu'il fermât les yeux sur la cité du Sang, de la volupté et de la Mort ».
A remarkable panegyric to the creator and impresario Serge de Diaghilev by Jacques-Émile Blanche, his loyal friend and portraitist of the Ballets Russes.
Entrance card (22.2 x 27.4cm), two tone recto print wood engraving on strong beige paper, central fold. One corner restored but a good copy.
Entrance ticket (n°1334 price 25) for the Grand Bal des Artistes organized at Bullier Hall, 31 rue de l'Observatoire in Paris on 23 February 1923 “for the benefit of the mutual aid fund of the Union of Russian Artists”.
Illustrated with a large, two tone wood engraving by Mikhail Larionov (1881-1964). On the back, the signature-stamp of S. Gourevitch, treasurer of the Union of Russian Artists.
Mikhail Larionov was a naturalized French, Russian painter and decorator, close to Kasimir Malevitch and Vladimir Tatline, husband of Nathalie Gontcharova. At the beginning of the 20th century, he was one of the pioneers of the Russian Avant-garde. In 1914, he moved to Paris and notably produced the sets for Serge Diaghilev's Russian Ballets.
Autograph letter by Pablo Picasso to Max Pellequer, vividly executed in multiple colours, signed and dated by the artist, 27 January 1956, addressed from his villa “La Californie”. Fourteen lines written in green, blue, pink, orange, red, violet and turquoise pencil on a watermarked “BFK Rives” sheet.
A few negligible transverse folds, as expected from mailing.
Picasso did not regularly employ colour in his correspondence. Here, however, he seems to have offered a gracious gesture to his friend and banker Max Pellequer, as the more visually striking his letters, the more sought-after they become. To speak of his work, Picasso turns to red pencil: “je continue mon travail avec ardeur” - a telling choice that conveys the fervour he wished to bring to his art.
First edition of this important and early collection of 50 superb lithographs of Algiers printed on china paper mounted on heavy wove, executed by the two painters Emile-Aubert Lessore (1805–1876), a pupil of Ingres, and William Wyld (1806–1889), a friend of Vernet. The work was originally issued in five parts: buildings, landscapes, figures, scenes, etc.
See: Bibliothèque algérienne de Gérard Sangnier, no. 207. Not in Blackmer. Playfair, 517. Tailliart, 896. Gay, 919. Brunet III, 1018.
Contemporary binding in half green shagreen, flat spine with triple gilt fillets and blind-stamped fleurons, gilt decorative bands at head and foot of spine, the upper band partially faded; marbled paper-covered boards with some marginal discoloration. Contemporary binding.
Spine restored, occasional scattered foxing.
Multi-coloured autograph letter from Pablo Picasso to Max Pellequer, signed and dated by the artist on June 5, 1956. The document includes the autograph address of his villa ‘La Californie’. Twelve lines in orange, pink, blue, yellow and purple pencil on one sheet.
Minor folds.
A very elegant letter written in pastel colours by Pablo Picasso.
First edition, printed in 500 numbered copies, of this splendid archaeological album featuring 78 in-text illustrations and 13 full-page plates with tissue guards (including 7 double-page or folding plates).
Text by Henri Lechat.
Publisher’s Bradel binding in full forest green cloth, smooth spine, headcaps slightly crushed, one joint split at head, spine and boards ruled in ochre, corners slightly rubbed, bookplate affixed to the front pastedown.
Copy from the library of industrialist Anatole Descamps (1833–1907), with engraved ex-libris by Devambez mounted on the pastedown.
A handsome copy.
First edition illustrated with 5 plates outside the text, including 4 folding lithographs printed in Marseille by Charavel: Plan of the camp at the foot of Mount Elbrus, View of Mount Elbrus, Inscription in Russian, Huno-Scythian alphabet, Inscription on two white marbles found at Magyar (cf. Blackmer 131, Atabey 105).
Spine split with small losses, some corner defects to the boards.
"The author was interested in tracing the origins of the Magyars to the Caucasian peoples. In 1829-1830 he travelled through the Caucasus and then into Armenia. He also produced a Turkish grammar,"
Abrégé de la Grammaire Turque, Pest, 1829 [Leonora Navari].
On the verso of the half-title appear the author’s and the publisher’s stamps and autograph signatures.
Printed ex-libris of J. de Sainte-Foy.
First edition, illustrated with 11 double-page folio plates, including 2 plans printed on tracing paper. (Not listed in Hage Chahine.)
The text fascicle is in wrappers and the suite of plates is loose, both housed in the publisher’s original black cloth-backed portfolio with corners, flat spine without lettering, title label centered on the upper board, sand-colored boards showing some stains and scuff marks, with flaps and ties.
On the inside flap of the publisher’s portfolio, autograph inscription signed by Henri Chevrier to Pierre Glénat: "... dans l'espoir de faire un jour sa connaissance sous le soleil der Thèbes..."
First edition printed in a very small number (cf. Polak 1648-1649).
Collection of two obituary notices published in the days following the death of Auguste-Nicolas Vaillant (1793-1858), the renowned navigator who commanded "La Bonite" during the celebrated scientific voyage of exploration of 1835-1837.
With continuous pagination (26 pp.), two separate title-pages and a general title, they are extracted from the "Moniteur universel" and the "Journal des débats" of 9 November 1858 (Vaillant died on 1 November).
The authors are Frédéric Chassériau and J.-J. Baude (their names appear at the end of each text). Cf. Taillemite 332.
A rare and appealing copy.
First edition, one of 15 numbered copies on Corée paper, the tirage de tête after three on 3 Japon.
Illustrated with 3 images by Irène Lagut.
Two small insignificant tears to head and foot of spine.
This copy has a chemise and slipcase of paper boards covered in snakeskin-effect paper with black and green scales, the slipcase edged with black cloth.
Fine autograph letter signed by Colette to her friend Bolette Natanson. Two pages written in ink on blue paper. Horizontal folds inherent to the mailing of the letter.
As ever protective and maternal with her friend, Colette compliments her: "Comme tu es gentille, - comme tu es Bolette". Nineteen years her senior, she praises the youth of "[her] child": "Tu es ma 'provision d'hiver', la jeunesse dont j'aurai besoin, plus tard, bien plus encore qu'à présent. Soigne-toi bien ma jeunesse en grange".
Having grown up from early childhood in artistic circles—she was the daughter of Alexandre and the niece of Thadée Natanson, the founders of the celebrated Revue Blanche—Bolette Natanson (1892-1936) formed friendships with Jean Cocteau, Raymond Radiguet, Georges Auric, Jean Hugo, and Colette.
Passionate about dressmaking, she left Paris for the United States with Misia Sert, a close friend of Coco Chanel, and was employed at Goodman. With her husband Jean-Charles Moreux, they opened in 1929 the gallery Les Cadres on boulevard Saint-Honoré and moved in the company of numerous artists and intellectuals. Their success was immediate and they multiplied commissions: the fireplace for Winnaretta de Polignac, the decoration of the Château de Maulny, the arrangement of Baron de Rothschild’s townhouse, the creation of frames for the industrialist Bernard Reichenbach, and finally the design of the shopfront for Colette’s beauty institute in 1932. Bolette Natanson also framed the works of her distinguished painter friends: Bonnard, Braque, Picasso, Vuillard, Man Ray, André Dunoyer de Segonzac, and others. Despite this dazzling ascent, she took her own life in December 1936, a few months after the death of her father.
First collected edition of which there were no grand papier (deluxe) copies, an advance (service de presse) copy.
A nice copy despite a tiny tear to foot of upper cover.
Rare autograph inscription signed by Robert Desnos to Pierre Berger: " ces feuilles déjà bien vieilles..."
First edition, a numbered copy on alfa du Marais paper, this one not included in the justification.
Handsome autograph inscription signed and dated by Aimé Césaire to Raymond Queneau: “Très sympathique hommage de ces bucoliques de sang et de soleil... [a very affectionate homage of these bucolics of blood and sunshine...]”
Covers and spine slightly sunned at edges (but not seriously).
The first edition of this review headed by Pierre Guégen, Eugène Jolas, Joseph Csaky and Frédéric Joliot.
Numerous contributions, including from Le Corbusier, Henry Miller, Raymond Queneau, Eugène Jolas, Léonce Rosenberg, Jacques Audiberti, Jean Hélion, Armand Robin, Paul Guth, Roger Caillois, Joë Bousquet, Jean Follain, Jules Monnerot, Léopold Sédar Senghor, Pierre Klosssowski, Michel Leiris, Aimé Césaire, and others.
Number 20 of Volontés contains a first edition, the entire “Cahier d'un retour au pays natal [Notebook on a Return to my Native Land]” by Aimé Césaire, a foundational and fundamental text of the “Négritude” movement.
Two plates worn, otherwise a good and rare set, lacking the extremely rare final number, the 21st, printed in April 1940, which is missing from most collections.
First edition, one of 85 numbered copies on pur fil paper, this one of 10 hors commerce lettered copies, the tirage de tête.
This copy is lettered “f”, specially printed for Raymond Queneau.
Handsome autograph inscription signed and dated by Youki Desnos to Raymond and Janine Queneau : "... La rue Lacretelle - le gras double du petit déjeûner...[…Rue Lacretelle – the double pleasures of breakfast…]", also with an inscription by René Bertelé : "... avec l'hommage bien amical du copiste...[with the copyist's best wishes]."
A very good copy.
Rare first edition.
A pleasing copy.
Contemporary full black cloth, spine gilt-stamped with a floral tool, double gilt fillet at foot of spine, red shagreen lettering-piece, blue paper endpapers and pastedowns, sprinkled edges, slightly frayed corners, contemporary binding.
Very rare signed and inscribed copy by Georges Gilles de la Tourette: "A mon cher confrère et ami le Dr Diamantberger. Gilles de La Tourette."
Dr. Mayer Saül Diamantberger was assistant physician at the Rothschild Hospital in the 1890s and regarded as one of the pioneers of rheumatology in France.
First edition, one of 55 numbered copies on pure wove paper, the only deluxe paper issue.
Bound in half brown morocco, spines with five raised bands, gilt dates at foot, boards covered with abstract patterned paper, endleaves and doublures of brown paper, original wrappers and backstrips preserved, gilt edges, bindings signed by Thomas Boichot.
A precious copy of this foundational text of modern feminism.
Multi-coloured autograph letter from Pablo Picasso to Max Pellequer, signed and dated by the author on June 13, 1957. The document includes the autograph address of his villa ‘La Californie’. 2 pages on one sheet, 22 lines in green, blue and red pencils on a watermarked sheet.
Minor folds.
An exceptional account of Pablo Picasso's passion for bullfighting, a recurring theme in his art since his very first works painted at the age of eight ("The Little Yellow Picador", 1899).
Pablo Picasso gives Max Pellequer and his wife details regarding a trip to Arles on July 5, 6 and 7, 1957, to which the artist has invited them along with a handful of friends. With undisguised enthusiasm, he announces that he has booked their rooms at the "Norpinus" [Nord-Pinus] and their seats for the bullfight. Only after providing this essential information does the painter mention the opening of his exhibition at the Réatu Museum and the official dinner with Douglas Cooper, the great collector, and the mayor of Arles, Charles Privat: "Dinner with Cooper & the mayor". A performance of "Aïda at the bullring" is also scheduled during this Arlesian getaway, which ends on the 7th with an intriguing "bull run with the presence of a black king".
Two original unpublished drawings by fashion designer Manfred Thierry Mugler on post-it notes in black ink, red, blue, beige, and yellow felt-tip pens and white correction fluid. Numerous mentions in English by the designer around the drawings depicting the front and back of an extravagant dress (which to our knowledge has never been made). Top corner of the first drawing backed with a small piece of tape.
The very body-hugging front of the dress is torn at the chest ("double breasted tuxedo wriped [sic]"). The blonde model wears a mask ("wolf ? Mask, lace eventually ?") similar to the famous "Mouche" sunglasses created by Mugler for his "insects" 1997 spring-summer collection, or the incredible masks designed for Lady Gaga.
The second drawing of the back of the dress shows a real trompe-l'oeil: Manfred notes to paint a portrait of Kim Kardashian ("KIM FACE") on the back of the model ("tattoo or photo hand paint") with black hair ("black dark hair") ; the revealed bottom and flared hips of the model depicting the ample bosom of "Kim". Uncovered backs are not new to Mugler who had already created a dress revealing the model's posterior decorated with a triple strand of pearls in his 1995-96 ready-to-wear fall-winter collection for the 20-year anniversary of his label.
Manfred designed this dress for his muse Kim Kardashian: "I love extreme personalities, they exist and they correspond to what I want to express. [...] I've always been looking for all kinds of beauty. Whatever bodies I perfect, they also exist without my intervention, but I oversize them, I adjust the waist, the shoulders, the whole silhouette. Kim Kardashian is a perfect example; she is a callipygous beauty, an eternal, almost ancient feminine ideal." ("Conversation between Manfred T. Mugler and Thierry-Maxime Loriot" catalog of the exhibition Thierry Mulger. Couturissime. at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, 2022)
In 2002, Manfred Thierry Mugler chose to retire from the fashion industry to focus entirely on his two passions: photography and entertainment. His fashion collaborations with celebrities became very scarce and carefully selected: first with Beyoncé, for whom he made every costume of her "I Am... World Tour" (2009), then with Kim Kardashian who inspired several outfits including a very tight and now iconic jumpsuit for the Met Gala in 2019 or a space cowgirl Halloween party costume in 2021.
Manfred Thierry Mugler's original designs are extremely rare, as T.-M. Loriot points out in the same catalog of his retrospective: "Your archives are highly prized, rarely loaned and even less exhibited"
Extremely rare and unique drawing by the brilliant designer, made for the sculptural Kim Kardashian - one of his "super glamorous warriors”
Clear pictures upon request
Black cloth binding. A white star made by Mugler in corrector fluid on the first cover.
Fifteen pages of the notebook filled in by the fashion designer:
- The first page, in neon blue felt-tip pen, with the word "Yes" as and large exclamation mark ending with the iconic Mugler star.
- A double page with the word "white" enhanced with corrector fluid and in capital letters on a black felt-tip background, in orange the words "Indehain" (?) and "TRIBE" with a drawing depicting a sun, several notes in black ballpoint pen: "Aelino Rock-Elektro", "DJ", "Syath Choreographie".
- A double page with a wonderful drawing of a naked Black woman with voluminous pink hair, and on the left with a black ballpoint pen the words "Super NOVA MAMA" with star enhanced with purple marker.
- A double page with three lines in green, red, and purple markers: "- La Perle de l'Afrique... / RIEN QUI BOUGE !!! / Le chic des mains de Paris !" [- The Pearl of Africa... / NOTHING THAT MOVES!!! / The chic of the hands of Paris!] The last exclamation point ends with a star.
- Several drawings of stars and perfume bottles sketches in pencil.
- A list of names in pencil, opposite some of them the letter "G" in blue marker, the mention "Kab" in red marker and a spiral in orange marker.
- A double page with a drawing of a perfume bottle and a planet with a phallus on it; above, several lines in blue, purple, orange, green and red markers with the following text: “Alice se perdit dans Brocéliande et se fit courser par le centaure Manfred...et ses dangereux attributs...Pauvre petite fille riche...Ce n'est pas le luxe qui va la sauver. Ombres d'arbres sous la lune "EN TRAVERS" CQFD... Testosterone et innocence...la Belle et la Bête !!! Rugissement furieux de métal...Perforation du Tympan et l'Hymen...L'HISTOIRE DU MONDE !" [Alice got lost in Broceliande [a forest in Brittany] and was chased by the centaur Manfred...and his dangerous attributes...Poor little rich girl...It's not luxury that will save her. Shadows of trees under the moon "IN THE WAY" QED... Testosterone and innocence...Beauty and the Beast!!! Furious roar of metal...Tympanum and Hymen perforation...THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD!]
- A double page in pencil with a sketch of a pole dancer with her head upside down in the left margin; with a text around it: "Strip Tease intello : laide, pas laide... Qui suis je ? Oui !... Je suis belle. Non ! Je suis laide... Regardez moi ! Non ne me regardez pas ! Voyez moi ! Aimez moi ! BAISE MOI !!! VAS T'EN ! Reviens. Folle... Pas folle... Grand Corps Malade ? Fabien" [Strip Tease nerd: ugly, not ugly... Who am I ? Yes !... I am beautiful. No! I am ugly... Look at me ! No don't look at me! Look at me! Love me! FUCK ME!!! GO AWAY! Come back. Crazy... Not crazy... Grand Corps Malade ? Fabien" [French singer Grand Corps Malade, whose real name is Fabien, wrote a song for the designer's music-hall show Mugler Follies]
- A pencil note: "Acte Vente Chelsea AT 92". Thierry Mugler sold his penthouse in New York's Chelsea neighborhood in 2012.
The personal archives of Manfred Thierry Mugler are exceedingly rare.
Clear pictures upon request
Edition adorned with 65 original pochoir coloured illustrations by George Barbier, one of 877 numbered copies on Rives.
Bound in half navy blue morocco, spine in four compartments, gilt date at the foot, marbled paper boards, iridescent effect paper endpapers, wrappers and spine preserved, top edge gilt, binding signed Semet & Plumelle.
Pleasant, attractively set copy.
One of the very few copies bearing an autograph inscription—fewer than ten are recorded—of this first edition, containing the Marseillaise.
First edition illustrated with an engraved frontispiece by Charles-Étienne Gaucher after Jean-Jacques Le Barbier and four pages of engraved musical score at the end of the volume. La Marseillaise appears here in its true first edition, having first been pre-published in the Almanach des Muses in 1793 and circulated as separate leaves.
Contemporary half-sheepskin binding, smooth spine gilt-decorated with compartments, fleurons and fillets, red morocco title-piece, black pasteboard sides. Several manuscript and pasted ex-libris on the pastedown and endpapers. Spine restored, some foxing. The last two letters of the dedicatee’s name have been trimmed in the binding.
The work is enriched on the half-title with an exceptional autograph presentation by Rouget de L’Isle to a fellow artist of the Revolution: “M de La Chabeaussiè[re] / de la part de l'auteur.”
Rouget de Lisle and Poisson de la Chabeaussière, the recipient of the dedication, both embodied the revolutionary fervour and left their mark on the republican history of France through their writings.
La Marseillaise is presented here alongside other poems and songs. This first edition delivers the celebrated anthem in its original form: six quatrains, as written by Captain Rouget de L’Isle for the Army of the Rhine in April 1792, and proclaimed the national anthem in 1795 by the decree of 26 Messidor Year III.
As lyricists and men of letters, Rouget de L’Isle and La Chabeaussière were zealous servants of the Revolution but also victims of its excesses. At the time of this inscription, in Year V of the Republic, the two men were at the height of their glory: one as the author of the national anthem that thrilled revolutionary France, the other as the writer of the most widely disseminated republican catechism of the Revolution. Indeed, La Chabeaussière composed another major work of revolutionary heritage: a Catéchisme républicain, philosophique et moral, reprinted eighty-two times up to the Third Republic, which earned him a seat on the Commission exécutive de l’instruction publique. Like Rouget de L’Isle, he also achieved success as a lyricist and librettist, notably for the comic operas of Nicolas Delayrac. The history of La Marseillaise from its creation is interwoven with that of La Chabeaussière and of the composer Delayrac, whose heroic drama Sargines ou l’Élève de l’amour presents striking similarities with the anthem.
Neither La Chabeaussière nor Rouget de L’Isle, despite the fame of the Marseillaise, escaped the terrors of the Revolution. Declared “suspects,” they were both imprisoned in 1793, respectively at the prisons of the Madelonettes and of Saint-Germain-en-Laye. After these dark hours, they resumed a more peaceful existence and continued to collaborate actively with the Almanach des Muses, which first published La Marseillaise in volume form.
Upon La Chabeaussière’s death in 1820, the copy embarked on a most romantic history. It still bears the inscription of its second owner, Édouard Gendron: “Ce livre a été acheté en 1821 – à un carrefour près la place de l’école de médecine, parmi un tas de ferraille.”
First publication by its composer of the most celebrated symbol of the French Republic: La Marseillaise. Its precious presentation brings together revolutionary poets whose intertwined destinies left an indelible mark on the history of France.
Set of eight original color engravings, printed on laid paper and signed at the lower right and left of the plates. The plates are introduced by a text signed by Jean Cocteau and depict costumes for Shakespeare’s play (two Shepherdesses, Paulina, and Time).
Bradel binding in full decorative paper, smooth spine, brown shagreen title-piece, binding signed by Goy & Vilaine.
Original engravings created for the illustration of La Gazette du bon ton, one of the most beautiful and influential fashion magazines of the twentieth century, celebrating the talent of French designers and artists at the height of the Art Deco movement.
A celebrated fashion periodical founded in 1912 by Lucien Vogel, La Gazette du bon ton appeared until 1925, with an interruption between 1915 and 1920 due to the mobilization of its editor-in-chief. It comprises 69 issues printed in only 2,000 copies and is illustrated with 573 color plates and 148 sketches depicting designs by leading couturiers. From the outset, these luxurious publications were addressed “to bibliophiles and worldly aesthetes” (Françoise Tétart-Vittu, “La Gazette du bon ton” in Dictionnaire de la mode, 2016). Printed on fine laid paper, they employed a typeface specially created for the review by Georges Peignot, the Cochin type, later revived by Christian Dior in 1946. The engravings were produced using the pochoir technique, hand-colored and in some cases heightened with gold or palladium.
The venture began in 1912 when Lucien Vogel, a man of fashion and society—already involved with the magazine Femina—decided with his wife Cosette de Brunhoff (sister of Jean, the father of Babar) to establish La Gazette du bon ton, subtitled “Art, modes et frivolités.” Georges Charensol reports the words of the editor-in-chief: “In 1910, he observed, there was no fashion magazine truly artistic and representative of the spirit of its time. I therefore thought of creating a luxury magazine with genuinely modern artists [...] I was certain of success, for in matters of fashion no country can rival France.” (“Un grand éditeur d’art. Lucien Vogel” in Les Nouvelles littéraires, no.133, May 1925). The success of the review was immediate, not only in France but also in the United States and South America.
At the outset, Vogel brought together a group of seven artists: André-Édouard Marty and Pierre Brissaud, soon joined by Georges Lepape and Dammicourt; and finally his friends from the École des Beaux-Arts, George Barbier, Bernard Boutet de Monvel, and Charles Martin. Other talents quickly joined: Guy Arnoux, Léon Bakst, Benito, Umberto Brunelleschi, Chas Laborde, Jean-Gabriel Domergue, Raoul Dufy, Édouard Halouze, Alexandre Iacovleff, Jean Émile Laboureur, Charles Loupot, Maggie Salcedo. Most of these artists were unknown when Vogel first engaged them, yet they would later become emblematic and highly sought-after figures in the art world. These same illustrators also created the advertisements for the Gazette.
The plates highlighted and exalted the creations of seven designers of the period: Lanvin, Doeuillet, Paquin, Poiret, Worth, Vionnet, and Doucet. For each issue, the couturiers provided exclusive designs. Nevertheless, some illustrations did not reproduce actual models but rather conveyed the illustrator’s vision of contemporary fashion.
La Gazette du bon ton represents a decisive stage in the history of fashion. Combining aesthetic refinement with visual unity, it brought together for the first time the leading talents of art, literature, and couture, imposing through this alchemy an entirely new image of womanhood—slender, independent, and bold—further embodied by the new generation of designers such as Coco Chanel, Jean Patou, and Marcel Rochas.
Taken over in 1920 by Condé Montrose Nast, La Gazette du bon ton greatly influenced the new composition and aesthetic choices of the “little dying magazine” Nast had acquired a few years earlier: Vogue.
Complete set of 115 copper-engraved plates with an additional plate (116 plates), all printed on either laid or wove paper, all hand-colored with watercolor. Two entirely different plates 39 follow each other, in first issue: "Les Titus et les cache-folies" was published in the 1817 and 1822 sets, and the other "La Politicomanie" appeared in 1827. This is the most complete series, which also includes the 11 new plates published from 1818 to 1822, numbered 105 to 115.
According to Vicaire, the plates were probably all printed between 1801 and 1822, and only the text preceding the plates was reprinted in 1827.
3/4 long-grained cherry half-morocco, smooth spine elaborately framed in gilt lentghwise, gilt tooled center of spine, gilt lettered title at head of spine framed in gilt, marbled boards, marbled paper endpapers and flyleaves. Minor brown spots are mainly confined to the 24 pp. of text, with very few on the plates, mainly on the margins and versos.
A rare and famous collection of costumes, genre and entertainment scenes from the French First Empire and Restoration eras, with very wide margins and magnificently hand-colored at the time. A veritable encyclopedia of thrills, pleasures and pageantry, published by Pierre de la Mésangère, leading fashion editor at the turn of the century. This copy includes two versions of plate 39, both of which are extremely scarce.
Edition of wich no leading copies exists.
Binding of the editor in full black fabric.
Iconography.
Slips slightly warped in margins, the book that had stayed in a damp place previously, otherwise nice copy.
Rare autograph signed Kenzo Takada Gilles Brochard.
Celebrated edition entirely engraved both images and text, richly illustrated with 6 engraved titles, a frontispiece and an engraved half-title for volume I, together with 243 figures, 473 vignettes and tail-pieces engraved by Fessard. The illustration of the first three volumes is the work of Monnet, and in the last three by Fessard after Bardin, Bidauld, Caresme, Desrais, Houel, Kobell, Le Clerc, Leprince, Loutherbourg, and Meyer. The text is entirely engraved by Montulay and Drouet within decorative borders.
Contemporary red morocco bindings, flat spines gilt in a lattice design with floral gilttooling, beige morocco volume and title labels, triple gilt fillet framing the boards, gilt fillet on the edges, gilt roll-tooled borders on the pastedowns, blue paper endleaves and doublures, gilt dentelle turn-ins, all edges gilt. Joints expertly restored.
A handsome copy, elegantly bound in contemporary red morocco with richly gilt-tooled spines, of this edition undertaken by Etienne Fessard, dedicated to the heirs to the kingdom or"enfants de France", the Duke of Berry, the Count of Provence, and the Count of Artois.
First edition of the translation by F. de Bretonne, assistant curator at the Sainte-Geneviève Library, based on a comparison of all earlier versions. The work is enriched with a suite of 10 vignettes by Charlet, retaining its original pink paper wrapper with vignette dated 1831; the volume also includes a portrait of Cervantes.
Half long-grain claret morocco binding with corners, signed at the head of the front endpaper S. David, late 19th century. Spine with four raised bands, decorated with complex and stippled tools within compartments. Gilt fillets on the bands. Double gilt ruling along boards and corners. Minor rubbing to some bands, joints, and corners. One corner slightly turned in. Occasional spotting in an otherwise fresh copy.
Original wrappers and spines preserved. Binding executed on untrimmed paper gatherings.
A very handsome copy.
Autograph letter in blue and red pencil by Pablo Picasso to Max Pellequer, signed and dated by the author on June 7, 1956. The document includes the autograph address of his villa ‘La Californie’. 12 lines on the front of the letter and two lines on the back on a printed notice announcing the forthcoming publication of a book by Thérèse Leroy.
Minor folds and a slight crease in the lower left corner.
We have here a rare written account of Pablo Picasso engaging in self-deprecation. In his villa "Californie", the painter found a printed poster announcing the forthcoming publication of the book "La technique du classement" (The Technique of Classification). On this announcement, he humorously wrote the following words: "Je vais m'y mettre. Un peu sur le tard" (I'll get started on it, with slight delay), well aware that he preferred to devote his time to his art rather than to administrative tasks. Picasso refers here to the topic of his letter, the discovery of a new insurance document requested by its recipient. Max Pellequer, who managed his finances, knew only too well the disorderly nature of his friend, the artist with 50,000 works to his credit.
Picasso's true concerns however seem to reflect in the letter's graphic composition. He changed the colour and size of the characters to highlight what really mattered to him: beauty and friendship.
« Mistral et soleil. Allez bien et bonne poignée de main de votre Picasso » ! ("Mistral and sunshine, and a proper handshake to you from Picasso"!)
Black and white photograph depicting a smiling Tony Curtis.
A handsome example, with slight ink smudging affecting the last two letters of 'Curtis.'
Bold blue ink autograph by Tony Curtis in the left margin of the image.
Provenance: from the collection of renowned autograph collector Claude Armand.
Reprint of a photograph showing a young Shirley Temple lying on a bed.
A fine copy.
Inscribed and signed in black felt-tip pen by Shirley Temple, dated 1988, to the renowned autograph collector Claude Armand.
Black and white photographic portrait depicting the Philippine dictator seated at his desk.
Accompanied by an official letter on the headed paper of the Office of the President of the Philippines, together with its envelope.
Manuscript signature of Ferdinand Marcos in black ink.
Provenance: from the collection of renowned autograph collector Claude Armand.
