La Reine de Saba

Paris: Société Littéraire de France. Printed by Durand, of Chartres, 1922. Limited Edition. Full Calf, Impressed or Stamped Decoration, Sponged Painting. Slipcase with Art Deco-style marbled paper pastedown. Émile-Antoine Bourdelle. Pochoir executed by Jean Saudé. No. 74 of 300 copies in total limitation, this being among the copies on Vélin de papeterie d’Arches. Original wraps bound in. Beautifully and artistically bound. Both the calf of the book proper and the slipcase employed a sponge painting technique to create a evanescent cloud-like marbling. The calf is colored in a subtler manner, with variants of brown and brownish-green consistent with the (truncated) color most associated with calf bindings, and also so as to not overwhelm the geometric ruled decoration, an Art Deco updating of a Cambridge binding, one might say, and the front cover sporting a centerpiece of a Star of David. The slipcase, as well as the endpapers, on the other hand, have dashes of orange, green, silver -- the silver having a metallic brilliance -- the colors colliding into one another seemingly randomly yet suggestive of a transcendent design. 4to. 29 by 23.5 cm. 105 pp., along with 50 pochoir plates, not part of pagination. (Last paginated page is 102, with three pages following continuing the text, followed by the limitation leaf.) The pochoir plates were realized by the premier master of the art form, Jean Saudé. In this his role was to serve Bourdelle, whose artwork brings a jagged Expressionism to the hoary Biblical subject and has a kinship, in our view, with stained glass actualization of Biblical subjects. And another thing we will add -- Bourdelle brings a delightful levity and element of fantasy to his imagery. (Inventory #: 007745)