SCHMIED François-Louis (1873-1941)

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Lot n° 25
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SCHMIED François-Louis (1873-1941)
Ruth and Boaz. Literal translation of the Semitic texts by Dr. J. C. Mardrus (Paris, chez F. L. Schmied, Peintre-Graveur et Imprimeur, 74 bis, rue Hallé, XIVe, 1930). In-folio, bound in black morocco, on the first plate, in a red morocco frame, a large ear of wheat forming a column in hammered gold leaf, the barbs of the ear in copper or silver wire, red morocco lining, black moire endpapers, half morocco folder, slipcase (F.-L. S.) 28 compositions by F.-L. Schmied, in colors. In the order of the volume, these illustrations of the same size face each other and form a double page illustrated, preceded and followed by a double page occupied by the text alone in a frame of monochrome lines. These illustrations were woodcut in his workshop and printed, as well as the text, on his presses, by his students, Theo Schmied being the workshop manager. The latter is also the preface to the edition and gives us some interesting (and rare) reflections on his father: "In compositions where the charms of detail are wrapped in a large, simple line, my father put the vibrant light of midsummer. Around each form dances the burning air. These trees, these houses, these landscapes, all creations of a brain. It is a colored graphic representation, not made on nature, but filtered through a creative temperament which chooses the lines, the forms, the colors suitable to move us. Thus this book makes a homogeneous whole. In the illustration and in the typographical order, as in the translation, we do not find an art that saves itself by the picturesque and the description, but a research of style in agreement with our modern conception of the Beauty. And this elegant style, with a well-established architecture that subordinates the detail to the desired effect of the whole, abbreviating by rectilinear lines all that is superfluous, will join the purity of the Egyptian graphics and the will of the Italian primitives." Edition at 172 copies : 7 on Japon, 155 on Madagascar and 10 copies of collaborators. This one copy n° 10, on Madagascar, enriched with a suite in colors and a suite in black of all the woodcuts, numbered 5 (manuscript), and with the original model of the binding. An astonishing and very spectacular binding by Schmied, decorated with an ear of wheat made of hammered gilt metal leaf and barbed with copper or silver wire; this decoration refers to the fields of wheat that are featured in Schmied's illustrations. This binding is reproduced by Félix Marcilhac (Catalogue des œuvres de Jean Dunand, n° 862); indeed, there is a translation of this same decoration made in lacquer by Dunand, in the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, U.S.A. (Catalogue des œuvres de Jean Dunand, n° 863). Provenance: Bibliothèque Félix Marcilhac, December 5, 2012, n°58 (we take over the remarkable presentation of the expert Dominique Courvoisier). A few barbs of the ear partly detached with a few small misses.
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