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First edition of the catalogue to Dubuffet’s second exhibition ‘Macrobolus et Cie’ in which he exhibited a large number of hauts pâtes paintings composed of earth, gravel, tar and sand. It proved to be a significant moment in the postwar art brut revolt against high art and learned culture and provoked a significantly negative response, both among critics and physically in the gallery. Two paintings were slashed and six others damaged. The pictures elicited a more favourable response in New York the following year.

The catalogue was limited to 700 copies (this one is unnumbered) plus 30 copies with an original lithograph.

First edition, number 10 of 11 copies on Japon (which was followed by 500 copies on Hollande, total edition 511), with the etched frontispiece by Lydis, depicting Christ as the Man of Sorrows. Cuban-born Armand Godoy was an important collaborator for Lydis. ‘Le Drame de la Passion, the most grandiose subject yet attempted by Godoy, is a musical tragedy in three acts; the characters are taken literally from the Bible with the addition of allegorical figures and types representing various aspects of humanity and nature, and of a chorus’ (French Review, 8, 2, Dec. 1934, pp. 145).

First edition, one of 180 numbered copies on papier vélin (total edition 250 copies). A collection of sixteen illustrated proverbs and popular superstitions (broken mirrors, the number thirteen, touching wood and so on). Somewhat in the vein of the artist’s earlier dreambook (Orientalishches Traumbuch) it contains the ironic dedication: ‘Ce livre est dédié à la femme tout spécialement, cet être frêle et sans défense, faible et indécis, qui a tellement besoin d’un appui occulte pour la guider’. The pochoir colouring is by Saude and the typography by Maurice Darantière (of Joyce’s Ulysses fame). The attractive and unusual binding is probably the work of an accomplished amateur.

One of a small number of copies only for private circulation, with the two erotic plates of young girls by Lydis, illustrating the first Folastrie of Ronsard’s 1553 collection Livret de Folastries. Carteret, III, p. 313. Worldcat lists the Dutch Royal Library copy only (where the place of publication is suggested as Buenos Aires). No copy in the Bibliothèque nationale, one additional copy at Edinburgh.

First edition for the Société des Cent Femmes and with the Lydis illustrations, of an erotic collection first published in 1908. This is copy 83 for Madame André Boivin. Marguerite Burnat-Provins was considerably ahead of her time with this sensuous text of female desire and description of the nude male body, using language that male poets had historically used to describe female nudes.

The women’s bibliophile circle, Société des Cent Femmes amies des livres was founded in 1927. This was a subscription society, producing a series of well-printed books between 1927 and 1968, usually with woodcut or engraved illustrations, limited to 130 copies only. The club was limited, as the name denotes, to 100 women at any one time and founding member included the comtesse de Noailles, Madame Funck-Brentano and the Princesse Ghika (née Hazel-Marie Paliner-Singer). It was one of two major women’s bibliophilic clubs founded in the 1920s, the other being Les Cent Une founded in 1926, who also commissioned a book from Lydis. Worldcat lists no copies outside continental Europe.

First edition with the Lydis illustrations. One of a total edition of 131 copies, this one of the 115 on papier de Rives). The illustrations, many in the style of illuminated miniatures or icons, are transformed through brilliant pochoir colouring executed in the workshop of master colourist Jean Saude, reproducing the artist’s signature on each.

These verse litanies, after the traditional catholic Marian litany, are entirely the creation of Armand Godoy and were first published (unillustrated) in 1930. Symbolist poet Godoy was born in Havana in 1880 and spent the first part of his life in Cuba and Peru, working in banking and the tobacco trade, before emigrating to France in 1919 with the express intention of becoming a poet ‘dans la langue de Baudelaire’. Much influenced by the Parnassians and the symbolists he was also a major collector of books, manuscripts and prints, amassing an unrivalled collection of Baudelaireiana. Among his numerous small-scale published works in French is his translation of Poe’s Raven — Le Corbeau d’Edgar Poe (Émile-Paul frères, 1929, with a frontispiece by Lydis). Worldcat lists copies at Princeton and Bridwell only outside continental Europe (to which we add the Edinburgh copy.

A scarce and substantial brochure for a charity gala, to which Mariette Lydis contributed eight full-page illustrations (some for adverts) mainly of young girls or women. Other artistic contributors include Marie Laurencin, Raoul Dufy and Vertès and there are further contributions from Jean Cocteau, Daisy Fellowes, Arthur Honneger, Pierre Mac-Orlan, François Mauriac, André Maurois and Colette. Lydis is the largest single contributor. The Bal des petits lits was an annual fundraising event for the benefit to sick and disadvantaged children and attracted the patronage of leading artistic figures each year.

First edition with the Lydis illustrations, of Colette’s coming-of-age novel (first published in 1900-3 with debatable contribution from her then-husband, Willy). This is copy number 47 of 100 on Lafuma with plates in 2 states, after copies on Japon and Hollande, of a total edition of 1585 copies on different papers. Though not called for copies on Lafuma, this copy has four original drawings bound as frontispieces, each signed by the artist. Three of them are of Claudine herself, the fourth, a delightful cat.

There was mutual admiration (and perhaps more) between Colette and Lydis, the former having written an admiring note on the artist for the programme of the 1934 Bal des petits lits blancs, which Lydis had illustrated.

First edition of Lydis’s astrological dream dictionary, complete with the moveable volvelle horoscope and striking plates printed in colours and gold. The numerous dream motifs Lydis illustrates include: the whore, the angel, flight, locusts, insects (she actually depicts a spider), sea creatures, suicide and the devil.

A fragile book, this is among the early works by Austrian born Lydis (1887-1970) who settled in Paris in 1926. She became known for her daring prints celebrating same-sex and bisexual love (notably her 1926 portfolio, Lesbiennes) and she later illustrated numerous deluxe editions of Boccaccio, Louÿs, Baudelaire, Mirbeau and Valéry. Lydis had no formal artistic training (or at least her education is obscure) but her work was no doubt inspired by the freedom of twentieth-century Paris. She escaped the Nazis during the occupation, living briefly with her partner Erica Marx in England, before the couple emigrated to Buenos Aires. Correa, Mariette Lydis, 4.4 (with an estimated edition of 150 copies).

A special number, devoted entirely the art of the book around the world, which includes 2 reproductions from Lydis illustrations.

First edition. Each plate is accompanied by an exotic love lyric by Schwabach (publisher, author and patron of Expressionism) ‘Die verliebten Billete des Prinzen Salamud’. The 18 plates reproduce Lydis’ orientalist miniatures in collotype and lithograph with gold and silver. The Müller firm had been established at Potsdam 1919 by Irmgard Kiepenheuer and Hans Müller. Kiepenhauer was an important figure in the artistic world of Weimar Berlin, hosting a cultural salon in Potsdam and being in personal contact with the most important contemporary artists — including many from the Bauhaus in Weimar. The firm issued several influential portfolios showcasing artists such as Max Beckmann, George Grosz, Erich Heckel, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Oskar Kokoschka, Max Pechstein, Christian Rohlfs, and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff.

A regular copy of a total edition of 1100 copies (of which 100 copies were signed). Several different publisher’s bindings exist.

First edition with illustrations by Mariette Lydis. Le Livre de Goha le simple, by two Egyptian Jewish authors, first appeared in 1919 (Calmann-Lévy) but this 1926 deluxe illustrated edition formed part of the Collection de chefs-d’oeuvre series. It was an important commission for Lydis. Goha the Fool was immensely popular, having narrowly missed the 1919 Goncourt prize (which went to Proust that year). ‘It is possible to see the beginning of Levantine literature ― rooted in the realities of the Middle East and influenced by European culture ― in Goha le Simple … This sad and cynical love story, which employs the prototype of Goha, the hero of many Middle Eastern tales describes the lives of the common folk of Cairo before the spread of Western cultural influence’ (Mongrels or Marvels: the Levantine Writings of Jacqueline Shohet Kahanoff, ed. Starr & Somekh, 2011). Lydis’s illustrations, evidently reduced from larger drawings are striking ― mostly depicting women of all ages and classes. This is one of 1000 copies on Rives (after 100 on Hollande and 100 on Annam).

First edition with the illustrations by Lydis, one of 350 copies on Rives (total edition 382).

The novel first appeared in 1936. Montherlant is remembered partly through the lens of Simone de Beauvoir, who chastised his misogyny and anti-feminism in The Second Sex. The disdain for adult homosexuality he expressed in public took on disturbing dimensions when viewed in the context of his private paedophilia, fully revealed only after his death. He was, however, an important connection for Mariette Lydis and was one of her first acquaintances on her arrival in Paris; he later wrote several appreciations of her work.

Number 9 of 100 copies of a separately-issued lithograph, coloured by the artist and exhibited at London’s Leicester Gallery in 1935. A reviewer in The Connoisseur wrote of that exhibition:
‘February’s triple bill at the Leicester Galleries began with a display of paintings, drawings and prints by Mariette Lydis, a Viennese, domiciled in Paris. She has been a prolific illustrator. No fewer than thirty volumes with drawings by her have been published, copies of which have been acquired by many of the principal national libraries. Her work may be seen in the public galleries of Paris — the Jeu du Paume and the Luxembourg — of Milan, Amsterdam, Vienna, Leipzig, and elsewhere. She has also been accorded the honour of having a self-portrait received in the Uffizi Gallery. Her travels have taken her all over Europe, to America and to Morocco, and she is said to be entirely self-taught.
In the drawings, which seem to be mainly studies or projects, her attitude, and quite rightly, appears to be objective. Often her subjects are viewed as so much still-life, but they show considerable delicacy, if not variety, in handling. Her paintings evince, especially in such subjects as the dream-like Nuages, more of imagination and more of sensibility. Sainte Vierge Enfant has a pleasant cameo-like quality, and Javanaise, considerable attractiveness. For ourselves, we find her most interesting in her etchings and lithographs. A series of the latter, entitled L’Art d’Aimer and the map like Oracle, are both imaginative and original’.

First edition of Lydis’s exquisite illustrations for selected passages from the Qur’ān, inspired by Persian miniatures. The plates, in colours and gold, were printed by Ganymed in Berlin, the text by Poeschel & Trepte in Leipzig. The book is known with several publishers’ bindings, and is here in its most striking form, with a vellum spine and marbled paper covers and slipcase (resembling Rorschach tests).

The Koran, and the miniatures Lydis created from it represent a Damascene moment in the artist’s career. They are reproduced here from her originals painted on vellum, made while she was still living in a villa outside Athens with her second husband, Jean Lydis. She later recalled their inception:

‘One day I found a copy of the Quran in the bookshop, and absorbed in reading it, finding it so full of wisdom, I suddenly decided that I had to illustrate it. Today I realize the audacity of that decision: I had no experience, nor did I possess any technique, I only felt the impatience to obtain the parchments necessary to start working.
I executed the illustrations like Persian miniatures, full of details in the landscapes and the clothing; for the first time I felt the benevolent fever of continuous work, day and night absorbed in my drawings and my colours.
In a few months I completed 42 illustrations, meticulous and colourful; I didn’t know whether they were magnificent or insignificant, but I loved them and was obsessed to the point of buying a small safe to protect them in case the villa caught fire. The house did not burn down, and my Quran, my first child, was finally published and sold out. Today I look at it without emotion, although it was decisive for my career as an artist. Many other illustrations followed it, and we are unfaithful to our works. Nevertheless, I could say that until now none of them has provoked in me the same intoxication as that work, which sprang from me like a fountain, effortlessly and before even thinking whether I could accomplish such a thing.
With my Quran completed I set out for Paris and London in search of a publisher; after a long pilgrimage I found someone interested [in Germany], and left with my contract in my pocket. That was more than satisfaction; it was the affirmation of a feeling and of the hope that had grown in me during months of work: that my paintings could produce in other people an emotion similar to mine, that I had the possibility of communicating to others what I wanted them to feel, something priceless and unpredictable for an artist. To always give the best of oneself. What one achieves seems (at least for the moment) like a realisation, an entity. Who could ever know how the public will react, what their judgement will be? Will they feel sympathy, aversion, tenderness, or hostility toward what they see before them? That public will be their judge, their friend, or their executioner. (Translated from an excerpt from Lydis’ 1942 Buenos Aires memoir, in Spanish, reproduced in Correa, En Busca de Mariette Lydis, pp. 73-4)

First edition, a charming children’s book with a Gallo-Roman setting, illustrated throughout by Lydis.

First edition, tirage de tête, copy number 6 of 30 copies on Japon (total edition 1100). A witty appreciation of Joseph Delteil, in the form of an ironic literary hagiography by his friends. Novelist and critic Joseph Delteil was associated primarily with the Surrealists, but he was an early admirer of the work of Mariette Lydis and also her lover for part of 1928. It was Delteil who observed that Lydis ‘paints with her breasts’, a remark which proved to be a controversial subversion of Renoir’s claim to ‘paint with my prick’ (Gluzman, ‘Desire, Mystery, Devotion: On Mariette Lydis’s Trajectory’, ISFLAA NY, ‘From the Desk of...’ 22 November 2024).

A unique artist’s book evidently made by Mariette Lydis for her subject, Basia Laffon (1910-2000). The title on the wooden boards and the title-page is lettered by hand (gold and red respectively) and the latter is signed and dated. The first drawing is a magnificent portrait head in pencil on vellum, with lips and eyes heightened with colour, followed by three more large portraits of Basia: seated in a loose dress, standing in buttoned shorts and sandals, and breastfeeding an infant. If the volume is then turned over and opened, a very different sequence appears. It opens with three pages of letterpress text ― the artist’s passionate appreciation of her subject followed by three superb nude drawings of Basia.
The printed dedication must have been composed and set (in handsome Garamond italic) solely for this unique copy. We can find no trace of it elsewhere, and since it leaves no doubt as to the strength and quality of the artist’s feelings for her model, we reproduce it in full. It is also one of the few sustained examples of Lydis’s writing from this period and we cannot fail to be struck by her appreciation of a young woman described in androgynous terms as a young ‘éphèbe’ (a young Greek warrior) and as an epitome of modernity. The artist would have been 46 or 47 when she drew Basia Laffon (a nickname for Barbara Sienkiewicz), then 23 or 24. She is recognisible as the model for several of the illustrations for Lydis’ edition of Sappho published in 1933 (and she received a specially coloured copy of that book from the artist).
Basia, jeune femme longue et souple, rieuse et très prête aux larmes, toute d’aujourd’hui, toute clarté ― abandon ― franchise.
Elle inonde la chambre dans laquelle elle entre d’un rayonnement ingénu, d’une tendresse tremblante des ses douces folies féminines. A la fois jeune pâtre, mère louve, paysanne solide qui ne craint pas le froid mais les fantômes, Basia transplantée dans n’importe quelle situation sera toujours à sa place.
La maison de Basia donne sur un vieux jardin. Inutile de sommer, la porte est toujours ouverte. C’est une maison adorable, une des rares maisons où je me sente à mon aise ; et ce n’est pas à cause des deux Mariette Lydis accrochés aux murs ; c’est que j’aime respirer l’air de ces pièces : j’aime la cage ronde habité par une rangée de ces tout petits oiseaux frileux qui meurent constamment sans qu’on puisse les pleurer, l’aquarium plein des gros poissons chinois et ventru, l’ecran de papillons de toute taille et multicolores.
Voicie le fond sur lequel se détache Basia. Un irish terrier et un chat vaguement persan complètent l’ameublement.
Basia a deux enfants qu’elle a faits toute seule et qu’on lui reproche.
Son apparence de jeune éphèbe aux seins irréprochables est toute neuve ; elle est neuve dans ce qu’elle dit, qu’elle fait, sans pose, sans artifice.
D’une simplicité vibrante, d’une spontanéité violent, elles est prête à l’attaque, à la défense, à l’émotion ― toujours. Même habillée, elle est nue, d’une nudité d’enfant ou d’animal, ingénuement, sans affectation.
Elle pose de grands pieds aux orteils bien séparés sur un tapis gris clair.
Toute impulsion ― oui, non ― sans réflexion aucune (et c’est bien ainsi), toute instinct, elle est faite d’élans, d’enthousiasmes, d’un bel égoïsme dans le sens grec du mot : ELLE ― ce qu’elle aime et peu d’autre chose.
Voìla Basia.
The portrait on vellum seems to have been something of an experiment for Mariette Lydis (in keeping with the modernity of her appreciation for Basia). It is set within a paper frame with clear a cellophane guard (which has subsequently rippled, perhaps encouraging the vellum below to do the same (to a lesser extent). Lydis had recently completed a commission for the Nonesuch Press in London, illustrating The Greek Portrait (1934). The publisher experimented with encasing the plates in clear cellophane, a material largely untested in book production, which later shrank in most copies, leaving the plates slightly cockled. It is interesting to see Lydis use the same here in this one-off production.

First edition, a total edition of 75 numbered copies, with plates signed by the artist, this being one of 60 copies on Hollande. Lucian’s text dates from the second century AD and the translation used here is that of Nicolas Perrot d’Ablancourt, of the seventeenth century. ‘Although on the periphery of the classical canon, Lucian’s text was popular with European and American audiences in the 1920s and 1930s as work that stimulated discourse on alternative sexualities’ (Paula Birnbaum, Women Artists in Interwar France: Framing Femininities, 2011, p. 208, and after, discussing a specific print from this edition which ‘celebrates the sexuality of a lesbian couple on the Greek island of Lesbos... represented by two modern-looking, naked women embracing passionately’).
This copy contains the printed notice that it was reserved for the artists Antoine ‘Tony’ Marie Charles de Lyée de Belleau and Annie de Villeneuve-Esclapon, on the occasion of their marriage. Carteret IV, p. 235: ‘Intéressant publication’. Worldcat: Bibliothèque nationale, Montpellier, Yale, Library of Congress, Boston Public Library only, to which we add the Edinburgh copy.

First edition of this collection with the Lydis illustrations. Number 85 of 165 copies and contains the inscription: ‘A Ida, avec toute mon amitié — en souvenir d’une semaine heureuse passée auprès d’elle. Mariette Lydis Paris 1934’ likely to have been addressed to the Russian-born dancer Ida Rubinstein.

Chant des Amazones is a celebration of female athleticism in verse, prose and image and is dedicated to ‘une jeune fille victorieuse dans la course des 1,000 mètres’. The texts are drawn from Montherlant’s Les Onze devant la porte dorée (1924) which he had written against the background of preparations for the 1924 Paris Olympics. Women’s participation in Olympic athletics was then extremely limited, but the decade after 1924 witnessed its rapid expansion and a general enthusiasm for women’s sport, reflected in this book. Well-known as a writer, Montherlant was an important contact for Lydis throughout her career though his posthumous reputation has revealed him as a serial pederast and dabbler in right-wing politics. His later works were marked by distinct anti-feminism and misogyny. Lydis’ illustrations are fresh and well-meaning, but her evident sexualisation of pubescent girls is troubling to the modern eye. The book was issued in handsome silver, green and turquoise lithographed wrappers.