From the 19th century onwards, the invention of lithography transformed the art of illustration. Artists soon embraced this technique, which offered almost total freedom of creation. The livre d'artiste made its appearance and colour came to shine upon literature...
Signed limited edition, one of 750 copies signed by the artist.
Original publisher's cloth, spine and front cover lettered in gilt, front cover with elaborate design in gilt.
Colour frontispiece and colour plates mounted on cream paper, captioned tissue-guards, by Edmund Dulac. Cloth soiled, some foxing to margins. With a loose leaflet advertising the exhibition of the original drawings at Leicester galleries in 1909.
First edition, one of 25 numbered copies on Japan, deluxe copies ("tirage de tête").
Beautiful copy wide-margined.
Illustrations by Charles Shoup.
Edition illustrated with 16 original copper engravings by Jean-Emile Laboureur, one of 25 numbered copies on vieux Japon à la forme, deluxe issue.
Full green box calf binding, smooth spine decorated with inlaid pieces of brown and red box calf forming a pattern of alternating diagonal lines extending onto the boards, a gilt fillet and a palladium fillet on the covers, black watered silk endpapers and doublures framed with a wide strip of green box calf and a geometric composition of red box calf framed in gilt on the doublures, original wrappers and spine preserved, all edges gilt, elegant Art Deco binding dated and signed by Geneviève de Léotard, 1931.
A precious copy housed in an elegant box calf binding with watered silk doublures, an original Art Deco creation by Geneviève de Léotard, pupil of Pierre Legrain: "At the height of Art Deco, Geneviève de Léotard […] was the only binder to rival Rose Adler in elegance. […] Her originality and inventiveness clearly distinguish her." (Yves Peyré, Histoire de la reliure de création, 2015, p. 184). As Fléty notes, "her well-constructed bindings, with very pure decoration and harmonious tonalities, display a reasoned originality which enabled [her] […] to always rank among the top entries at the exhibitions in which she participated. (Julien Fléty. Dictionnaire des relieurs français ayant exercé de 1800 à nos jours. Technorama, 1988. p. 111).
Bookplate pasted onto the front free endpaper.
Our copy, like the copies of the deluxe issue on Japon, is complete with the suite of original engravings.
