LYDIS, Mariette. BAUDELAIRE, Charles. ~ Les Fleurs du Mal Paris: [text by A. & F. Bebeauve for] G. Govone, 1935 [text 1928].
Folio (325 × 245 mm), text: [8], 13-337, plus portrait frontispiece and a facsimile leaf of Baudelaire’s manuscript (both mounted). Plus 33 hand-coloured lithographed plates by Mariette Lydis, all signed and with verse extracts for each in pencil by the artist. Original wrappers preserved in contemporary dark red morocco by T. Steibel.
First editions of both text and plates, this copy with the artist’s signature and additional pencil extracts from the text added in pencil to the lower margins of each plate.
Govone printed 353 copies of his large-format Baudelaire in 1928, together with just 125 copies of an accompanying suite of etched plates by Lydis. This left over 200 copies of the text un-illustrated, many of which were unsold by 1935, when Lydis prepared a new suite of plates for them - the present 33 hand-coloured plates. The text volume was reissued in new wrappers and paired with the new plates. This copy of the text is number 173 of the 290 copies on hollande, and the 33 plates are all signed in pencil.
The reissue of the 1928 text with the 1935 plates has been a frequent cause of bibliographic confusion, with the highly distinctive plates often catalogued as dating from 1928. They do not, and are entirely different from Lydis’ earlier suite.