SCHMIED François-Louis (1873-1941). MARDRUS Joseph-Charles ( - Lot 224

Lot n° 224
Go to lot
Estimation :
40000 - 50000 EUR
Result with fees
Result : 37 200EUR
SCHMIED François-Louis (1873-1941). MARDRUS Joseph-Charles ( - Lot 224
SCHMIED François-Louis (1873-1941). MARDRUS Joseph-Charles (1868-1949). Histoire de la princesse Boudour. Conte des mille et une nuits (Paris, [F.-L. Schmied], 1926); in-4, blue morocco, spine with 2 large ribbed boards, mosaic composition, filleted and with paint highlights on the upper board, gilt fillet decoration running over the boards, the spine and the inner frame, blue silk lining and endpapers brocaded with gilt floral motifs, gilt edges, covers preserved, folder and slipcase (Creuzevault). (Some rubbing to the slipcase). First edition of the greatest rarity, printed in only 20 numbered copies on japon. Splendid color illustrations by Francois-Louis Schmied: about 50 woodcuts, 18 of which are very large, in the text, all engraved by him and hand-colored in the lacquering workshops of Jean DUNAND; nearly 300 hand-colored initials and line-ends in the text, in harmonies of colors varying according to the pages, with gold or white highlights, tracing geometrical or erotic motifs. Copy enriched with a magnificent original erotic watercolor, signed "F.L Schmied", with the autograph mention "for Boudour" (18,4 x 120 cm), with gold and silver highlights, under a cover of Japanese paper. It represents the two lovers of the book, Boudour and Kamaralzaman. "The Princess Boudour is regarded by those who know how to see, as the capital book of this first quarter of the century. By its writing and its general technique, it is a premeditated exception in the work of its author. In order to realize it, he really enjoyed himself, this time - as an enthusiastic reader of A Thousand and One Nights - to comment graphically on the text that he knows so well and with which he is as if soaked [...]. He has [...] .../... granted us the delectable gift of three hundred and ninety vignettes and in color, and all different, and that relate to the text [...]. And isn't this Schmiedian munificence, in the end, the exaltation of our modernity, and in conformity with our tastes, of the incomparable imagers of the East? [...]. With what tenderness, with what muted and contained passion, which belongs only to him, he has rendered, by means of the fragile tools of the engraver and the colorist, the masculine grace of the adolescents, and the tender banana flesh of the radiant maidens! [...] I think that if it were absolutely necessary to apply an epithet to the smile of Schmiedian teenagers, and even to that of teenagers, nothing would suit them better than the word ambiguous... An atmosphere of pure delight envelops this Buddhist work, multiple, voluptuous, spiritual, and with such an essence of the authentic Orient that it really makes us breathe in all the perfumes of Arabia." (Preface to the catalog of the Schmied exhibition at the Arnold Seligmann Rey & Co. Gallery, New York, March 1927, pp. 34-37). Superb binding by Creuzevault representing the palace on the island of Ebony: the rich decoration on the first board, which mixes mosaic elements, applied, threaded with palladium, tinted or powdered with gold, transposes a detail of Schmied's illustration (leaf 81 of the volume). Reference: F.L. Schmied, le texte en sa splendeur, Bibliothèque publique et universitaire de Genève, 2001, n° 26.
My orders
Sale information
Sales conditions
Return to catalogue