La Famille Cardinal.
Paris: Calmann Lévy, Éditeur, 1883.
12mo, (4), 210, (1) pp. Two engraved frontispieces plus 20 fine watercolor sketches done on blank pages or in the margins, including 3 full-page watercolor title pages. Bound by Paul-Romain Raparlier in full crushed blue morocco, gilt turn-ins, ornately gilt-tooled red morocco doublures, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt, ribbon marker. Original blue printed wrappers bound in. Binding a little marked and rubbed, worn at extremities, front free endpaper detached. Contents fresh with occasional offsetting from the watercolors. Very good.
§ Trade edition bound by Raparlier and extra-illustrated with 20 delightful and highly-accomplished watercolor drawings by Léon Lébegue, likely commissioned by a contemporary collector in Paris as was the widespread custom. (See Ray, The Art of the French Illustrated Book, 1700-1914, p. 375-376.) The trade edition was issued alongside a deluxe edition limited to 50 copies on Japon and 200 copies on papier vergé du Marais.
Léon Lébegue (1863-1930) was just 20 when he completed these lively designs. He was a prolific illustrator of books, posters, magazines, menus, programs, and cartes de visite and remains an artist of note among collectors of Art Nouveau posters. He was featured in L'Album Mariani for 1902: "In pages that are masterpieces of refinement, satirical wit, and keen observation, Léon Lebègue abundantly demonstrates the scope of his inventive, spontaneous, and charming spirit. [...] He is drawn to what is pretty, light, and infinitely delicate in ornamentation."
The binder Paul-Romain Raparlier (1858-1900) trained at the École des Beaux Arts and won a gold medal at the Exposition Internationale du Livre in 1892. Among the French binders of the period Prideaux credited him with being "the most enthusiastic innovator and the boldest in his deviations from the traditions of the craft." Leonard Smithers recorded some of that boldness in his Catalogue No. 3 (September 1895) which contained an edition of Holbein's Dance of Death bound by Raparlier in human skin and the note "Raparlier is the present acknowledged master of the Bibliopegistic Art in France, and has created an entirely new school, which in point of originality is worthy of the supremacy of his country in such matters. This example is one of his masterpieces, and in time to come will rank with the most famed productions of Clovis Eve, Padeloup, Derome, and Le Monnier." Item #127018
Price: $1,500.00