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First edition, one 353 copies of the text and just 125 of the plates (both volumes numbered 11) with all plates signed by Mariette Lydis and in their coloured state, generally considered Mariette Lydis’ finest book. The text volume contains a facsimile of Baudelaire’s self portrait and a page of facsimile of his manuscript, both from the collection of Armand Godoy, as well as the loose leaf ‘Prière d’inserer...’ by Jean Royère’, the latter not always preserved. The artist created a further sequence of coloured drawings for Les Fleurs du Mal in the 1930s issued as lithographs in 1935. These reproductions were frequently bound up with remaining copies of the 1928 text volume, causing confusion among cataloguers, with these hybrid 1928/33 volumes habitually dated 1928 without further comment. The 1935 illustrations have none of the sparse intensity of Lydis’ 1928 sequence of etched plates. Carteret IV, 63: ‘Ensemble recherchée et cotée. Une des meilleures illustrations de l’artiste’.

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).

First edition with Lydis’s illustrations, complete with the 14 additional erotic plates to complement the 42 plates bound in (some of which are equally ‘libres’). Number 209 of 900 copies on Arches (after 56 Japon copies each with an additional drawing), total edition 956..

An exceptionally rare edition from a remarkable Montmartre private press, presided over by the eccentric but much respected poet Jean-Paul Hippeau (sometimes known as ‘Harry Hops’). His productions were all printed in letterpress on a handpress, with coloured woodcuts in a primitivist style — the best of the woodcuts, found in the 1927 Solitudes de Purun Bhagat are subtly inked in the Japanese manner.

From a good family, Jean-Paul Hippeau,was born in 1879, son of a consul and musician. Raised in Beauce and educated at the École des Sciences politiques he turned his back on conventional society at a young age and devoted himself to writing and art, living alone in considerable poverty. His charismatic and enigmatic presence was recalled by a contemporary: ‘C’est un lion, avec un béret de velours et un gilet à fleurs. Il imprime ce qui lui plaît sur un méchant gaufrier. Fastueux et pauvre, il incarne le dernier des romantiques…’ (Le Matricule des Anges 237, Éric Dussert)

The colophon reads ‘à la vue de Montmartre, à l’heure où le crépuscule joue avec la Butte sur les nuées changeantes des ciels parisiens … Adieu, rude labeur qui m’a procuré l’illusion d’un beau voyage’. Worldcat records the Bibliothèque nationale copy only (there is also a copy at Boston Athenaeum).

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).

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.

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).

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.