ROSENTHAL (Léonard)

Paris, L’Edition d’Art H. Piazza, (1920).

4to, publisher’s wrappers with sponge-like design in blue, gilt and silver with a gilt-lettered label mounted on the upper cover. 139 pp., elaborate decorated capital letters, head- and tailpieces, 10 mounted Persian miniature style colour plates with descriptive tissue guards. Complete.

First Illustrated Edition of this treatise on pearls.

Edmond Dulac (1882-1953) was part of a new generation of illustrators who contributed to the revival of the illustrated book at the beginning of the 20th century. Originally from Toulouse, he settled in England in 1905. Like Arthur Rackham, fifteen years older than him, he seized the then flourishing niche of illustrating luxury gift books. He drew from the same corpus of magical texts and exhibited his originals in the same gallery. The delicacy of his line and colours were perfectly rendered by the recent process of halftone engraving. Until the war, he illustrated a new title every year, which Henri Piazza also published luxuriously in France. “His plates, truly genius, do much to bring a fanciful touch to the otherwise stark exposition of a treatise on pearls” (Ann Conolly Hughey, Edmond Dulac: His Book Illustrations, 1995).

Very fine copy of the trade issue, with the delicate silver cover well preserved.

Price: 450,00 euros