Les Fleurs du mal

Charles BAUDELAIRE & Félix BRACQUEMOND
& Gustave COURBET & Félicien ROPS & Édouard MANET
Les Fleurs du mal [Flowers of Evil]First edition printed on vélin d'Angoulême paper, complete of the six condemned pieces and bearing the usual typographical misprints of the first edition (“Feurs du mal”, pagination error...).
Jansenist binding in full red morocco, spine in five compartments, gilt date and location at the foot, gilt roll tooling on the spine ends, gilt fillet frame on the pastedown endpapers in full brown morocco adorned in their centres with a blind stamped decoration based on the frontispiece of Les épaves by Félicien Rops, representing a skeleton whose arms are the branches of a dead tree, following endpapers of comb-patterned paper, wrappers preserved, double gilt fillets on the leading edges, all edges gilt; slipcase, superb binding in lined morocco signed Chambolle-Duru. René Chambolle and Hippolyte Duru belong to the “golden age of French bookbinding”. Their association began in 1861 and their bindings were particularly popular with the great bibliophiles of the second half of the 19th century.
Our copy has been enriched with:
– the portrait of Charles Baudelaire engraved by Félix Braquemond, for the second edition of Les Fleurs du mal in 1861
– the portrait of Charles Baudelaire at his desk by Gustave Courbet in 1848 and engraved by Félix Braquemond
– 2 portraits of Charles Baudelaire painted and engraved by Edouard Manet, on China in 1862 and 1865
– the self-portrait of Charles Baudelaire engraved on China by Félix Bracquemond in 1848
– the frontispiece by Félicien Rops for the first edition of Les Épaves published in 1866, with the explanation of the frontispiece printed in red
A very beautiful copy perfectly set in a macabre, morocco-lined binding from the end of the 19th century and enriched with the most famous portraits of the Fleurs du mal poet.
Provenance: the library of Pierre Duché with its ex-libris.