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SOLD

Réf : 66727

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Albert COHEN

Belle du seigneur

Gallimard, Paris 1968, 14,5 x 21,5 cm, relié.

First Edition, one of 55 numbered copies on vellum "pur-fil" paper Lafuma-Navarre, only large paper print.

Bound in full morocco burgundy, smooth back, boards decorated with a mosaic geometrical decoration composed of pieces of box wine lees and vellum burgundy varnished calf ending on the back, guards and contreplats of beige suede, all golden slices and golden head on witnesses, blankets and back preserved, shirt-case bordered in Bordeaux half-morocco, marble paper plates, burgundy and beige suede interior, elegant and beautiful binding signed by Colette and Jean-Paul Miguet.

We have been able to identify only 10 copies of the first edition sold since 2002 of this major work, the "absolute masterpiece" according to Kessel. The case made for this one by two great masters of the contemporary binding makes it incontestably the most beautiful of all and one of the few at all margins.

Colette and Jean-Paul Miguet, active between 1951 and 1981, are among the greatest binders of the second half of the twentieth century. "Their productions range from the purest classic to the most modern original creation, without ever falling into the binding-object which for them is a heresy. (...) Boundless advocates of high quality book binding, these two craftsmen argue that the bookbinder must never betray the author in the design of a set, or, possibly, the illustrator, but must define graphics and colors that will interpret them best, and this, in a perfection of execution. (Julien Fléty, Dictionary of French Binders , 1988). In 1994, the Wittockiana Library in Brussels devotes a retrospective exhibition of 99 bindings made by the famous couple on the greatest works of French literature.

Superb copy set in an exceptional binding of one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century, "as a culture produces a dozen per century" (François Nourissier).

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