Search

A delightful, accomplished and idsiosyncratic illuminated manuscript in neo-gothic style by a French woman, one Sophie Mallet, probably as a wedding gift for a female friend or relation: Jeanne or ‘JMN’. The texts include familiar words of advice for a young wife, scriptural and otherwise, while a section titled ‘Vie du monde’ includes personal and original advice addressed to ‘ma Jeanne’. Among the texts are: ‘Qui trouvera une femme forte?...’ (Proverbs 31 [incorrectly given as Ecclesiasticus here], ‘Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies’); ‘Bienheureux les pauvres d’esprit...’ (Matthew 5, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven); ‘Faites comme les petits enfants qui de l’une des mains se tiennent à leur père’ (St Francis of Assisi, ‘Suffer Little Children to Come Unto Me’), and there are excerpts from the Imitation of Christ and from St Bernard.

The real pleasure of the manuscript lies in its illumination, expertly done with unusual and quirky details. The borders include numerous recognisable birds, insects and flowers rendered in impressive detail. Colours are applied very skilfully as are metallic highlights, including burnished and liquid gold, often on raised or otherwise textured grounds. Best of all is the colophon or tailpiece, which includes an entwined pair of longtailed dragons looking more like dinosaurs than medieval beasts.

The earliest portrait of Leopold Bloom. Mariette Lydis published this image in the first issue of the journal 900 with the fragment of Ulysses in the French translation by Auguste Morel. It is dated 1925 in the lower corner. No earlier illustration of Bloom is known (nor indeed any earlier illustration of Ulysses) and it predates Joyce’s famous but inept sketch of him made in Paris in 1926. Lydis’s Bloom was introduced (by us) in The James Joyce Broadsheet (issue 121, February 2022) and discussed in the Times Literary Supplement 6167 (11 June 2021).
Joyce was nominally a joint editor of the radical literary review 900 with Massimo Bontempelli. Mariette Lydis was Bontempelli’s lover at this period having separated from her second husband, Jean Lydis in 1925. Mariette knew Joyce and sketched his portrait the following year in Paris. Slocum & Cahoon, A Bibliography of James Joyce (953), D25 (p. 113).

One of 125 copies only of this original print from Dix Eaux-fortes pour illustrer Les Fleurs du Mal, Paris, 1928.

One of 125 copies only of this original print from Dix Eaux-fortes pour illustrer Les Fleurs du Mal, Paris, 1928.

One of 125 copies only of this original print from Dix Eaux-fortes pour illustrer Les Fleurs du Mal, Paris, 1928.

One of 125 copies only of this original print from Dix Eaux-fortes pour illustrer Les Fleurs du Mal, Paris, 1928.

One of 125 copies only of this original print from Dix Eaux-fortes pour illustrer Les Fleurs du Mal, Paris, 1928.

One of 125 copies only of this original print from Dix Eaux-fortes pour illustrer Les Fleurs du Mal, Paris, 1928.

One of 125 copies only of this original print from Dix Eaux-fortes pour illustrer Les Fleurs du Mal, Paris, 1928.

One of 125 copies only of this original print from Dix Eaux-fortes pour illustrer Les Fleurs du Mal, Paris, 1928.

One of 125 copies only of this original print from Dix Eaux-fortes pour illustrer Les Fleurs du Mal, Paris, 1928.

One of 125 copies only of this original print from Dix Eaux-fortes pour illustrer Les Fleurs du Mal, Paris, 1928.

First and only edition of this delightful illustrated gift book, describing the four ages of women and depicting them in a series of elegant hand-coloured plates. The dedication printed in civilité type is to the author’s wife (and mother of his children). The final 10 pages comprise a calendar for 1820 (in common with the V&A copy). Worldcat: V&A and Landesbibliothek Mecklenburg only.

A spectacular and unique interpretation of Baudelaire by Neville Lytton including twenty original watercolours with illuminated borders. Each of Lytton’s images is in the visionary tradition ―most have an otherworldly quality, and some border on Surrealism.The twenty poems comprise: Le Calumet de la Paix - Bohémiens en voyage - La Géante - Le Cygne - La Beauté - L’Idéal - La Vie antérieure - Sisina - Un Voyage à Cythère - XVIII - A une Passante - L’Albatros - L’Ennemi - Bien loin d’ici - Une gravure fantastique - L’Amour et le Crâne - La Cloche fêlée - Le Voyage - Le Balcon - Les Bijoux.
Most of the poems are given in two calligraphic versions, one probably written with a steel nib, the other with an oblique nib, perhaps a quill-pen. Three poems appear in only one version: La Cloche fêlée in steel nib version only and Le Balcon and Les Bijoux only in quill pen.
Neville Bulwer-Lytton (1879-1951) was grandson of the novelists Edward Bulwer-Lytton and Rosina Doyle Wheeler and his siblings included the suffragette Constance Lytton and Emily Lutyens. He was a man of many parts: a military officer, cricketer, Olympic athlete and artist ― educated at Eton and the École des Beaux-Arts. He was also an accomplished morris dancer and played an ivory flute.
Among several notable portraits, he painted George Bernard Shaw in papal robes (in imitation of Velazquez) and a series of fashionable women in sumptuous velvets and silks, but he is best known for the series of First World War frescoes for the Victory Hall at Balcombe, Sussex. Throughout his career he also painted watercolour miniatures, intensely detailed with a distinctive coloration ― a style entirely suitable for these Baudelaire illustrations. His first wife was Judith Blunt, daughter of Wilfrid Scawen Blunt (divorced in 1923), and he was an important member of circles of artists and connoisseurs around the turn of the 20th century. He was friendly with Sydney Cockerell, spent weekend with the Churchills, and Eddie Marsh claimed that it was meeting Lytton that inspired his love of collecting. In 1924 Lytton married Rosa Alexandrine (Sandra) Fortel of St Rambert-en-Bugey, near Lyon and settled in France, asborbing himself deeply in French artistic culture. He wrote: ‘‘I love France because I am an artist, and in this glorious country artists are considered to be sacred --- to them gratitude is shown for the renouncing of material wealth and worldly values and the adoption of a life of struggle which as a rule is only understood by a small number of contemporaries’ (‘Reasons why I love France’ in Life in Occupied France, 1942).

Sole edition, this copy signed and inscribed by the artist to Pierre Toreilles. For the Shakespeare 400 year centenary Hugo painted 13 very large panels depicting an imagined journey of Shakespeare from Stratford to Oxford, a path the artist apparently traced on foot. His scenes comprise: Charlecote Park, Fowlers and the Red House of Tysoe, Gentry at Compton Wyngates, Mummers on the Green, Nearing Oxford, Chipping Camden Fair, The Road to Market,The Cotswold Games, Plough and Pasture, Hawking in the Stour Valley and Meon Hill.

‘The French artist Jean Hugo (1894-1984) produced... a set of six canvases he painted for the Shakespeare Festival Exhibition, organised by the ballet critic Richard Buckle in Stratford-upon-Avon. Opened by Prince Phillip on 23 April 1964, the exhibition celebrated the quatercentenary of Shakespeare’s birth and aimed to portray the world of Tudor England as it may have appeared to Shakespeare... Jean Hugo was born in Paris the great-grandson of the poet and novelist Victor Hugo. He was a painter, illustrator, theatre designer and author, whose artistic career spanned the 20th century and whose work brought him into contact with many of the most influential artistic figures of the 20th century including Jean Cocteau, Pablo Picasso, Paul Eluard, Francis Poulenc, Max Jacob, Cecil Beaton and many others.’ (V&A website). Not found in Libraryhub. Worldcat lists copies at National Gallery of Canada and University of Strasbourg only.

A rare perspective peepshow depicting a boar hunt in a forest, with horses and dogs. Engelbrecht (1684-1756) produced many different designs of these sets in three sizes, of which ours is an example of the smallest (and rarest). They were designed to be viewed when slotted successively into a perspective viewing box but can equally be appreciated when standing in simple slots or stands. One of the parts is marked ‘N. 87’ in the plate. In this example the prints have been mounted in the early nineteenth-century. cf. Ralph Hyde, Paper Peepshows (2015), pp. 14–15 and David Robinson, ‘Augsburg Peepshows’, Print Quarterly, Vol. 5, No. 2 (June 1988), pp. 188–191.�

A rare perspective peepshow depicting a stag hunt in a forest, with horses and dogs. Among the hunters is one with a rifle, and two with horns. Engelbrecht (1684-1756) produced many different designs of these sets in three sizes, of which ours is an example of the smallest (and rarest). They were designed to be viewed when slotted successively into a perspective viewing box but can equally be appreciated when standing in simple slots or stands. One of the parts is marked ‘N. 87’ in the plate. In this example the prints have been mounted in the early nineteenth-century. cf, Ralph Hyde, Paper Peepshows (2015), pp. 14–15 and David Robinson, ‘Augsburg Peepshows’, Print Quarterly, Vol. 5, No. 2 (June 1988), pp. 188–191.�

Mariette Lydis contributed the charming cover image for the catalogue for the annual January ‘white’ linen sale at the iconic Parisian department store Au Bon Marché. The catalogue is illustrated throughout with household linens, lingerie, dresses and children’s clothes.

Sole edition of a rare illustrated poetical collection by a so-far unidentified woman of the English community at the Breton town of Dinan. The subscribers list contains 52 names, mainly English and mainly women. The romantic plates are very accomplished but unsigned, save by the printer Mainoë at Nantes. They are captioned with excerpts from the verses. No UK copies located by JISC/COPAC. Worldcat: Columbia and Bn.

Second and enlarged edition, augmented with a second part on bookbinding (the first edition was published at Dijon in 1818). Mairet’s is one of the important early accounts of lithography with a detailed account of the processes of preparation, the application of images to the stone and of the printing itself (with a plate of a lithographic press). Despite the importance of his treatise on lithography, Mairet is best known as a binder. A native of Dijon, he established himself as a binder and paper-dealer around the year 1806, he later worked mainly as a paper manufacturer. ‘He published, among other works, an Essai sur la reliure et leblanchissement des livres [the present book] in 1824, much of which was used by Lenormand and embodied in the Roret Manuels on Binding... he is probably the greatest binder of the time in the use of classical motives, and his work has much charm and delicacy’ (Ramsden, French Bookbinders, p. 133). The Essai sur la reliure is particularly valuable as a first-hand account of contemporary methods of colouring binding materials and producing decorative effects such marbling on both paper and leather. Bigmore & Wyman II, 14 (’The new edition was printed in a far superior manner to the old one, and the plates are much better executed... Copies are now seldom met with’); Pollard, Early Bookbinding Manuals 52; Twyman Lithography 1800-1850, pp. 92-95.