CORTHIS, André. HERMANN-PAUL, illustrator. ~ Victime expiatore. Paris: Fayard, Le Livre de Demain, [1926].
4to (230 × 175 mm), pp. 126, [2]. 27 illustrations, plus a suite of 27 original numbered wood engravings on chine, initialled by the artist. Some foxing to extreme margins in text. Original yellow decorative wrappers and wrappers to the suite preserved, in contemporary marbled boards with orange morocco geometric onlays.
First edition, number 2 of 15 copies with the original wood engravings on chine. Hermann-Paul, with his sparse and economical style, was one of the most successful and effective of the French wood engravers of the twenties. He was already very well established by the time of the Great War, and turned to working on wood by necessity as metal for print making became scarce.
Fayard’s enterprise was one of democratisation — aiming to bring high-quality illustration, examples of the current revival in woodcut and wood engraving, to a wide audience at a reasonable price. Accordingly, the illustrations of the regular volumes were printed in large numbers from phototype metal blocks made from the woodblocks, with just 15 copies of each (as here) presented with an additional suite specially printed on fine paper from the original blocks.