VERLAINE (Paul) - BONNARD (Pierre). - Lot 88

VERLAINE (Paul) - BONNARD (Pierre). Parallel. Paris : Ambroise Vollard, 1900. - In-4, 302 x 245: (4 ff. first blank), 139 pp. (2 ff. last blank), illustrated cover. Jansenist pink silk, smooth spine, same silk lining, double endpapers, untrimmed, cover and spine preserved, slipcase (period binding). Montel, Bibliographie de Paul Verlaine, 1924, p. 12 - Galantaris, Verlaine, Rimbaud, Mallarmé, pp. 133-135. ONE OF THE MASTERPIECES OF THE ILLUSTRATED BOOK, CONSIDERED TO BE THE FIRST MODERN PAINTER'S BOOK. This is the first illustrated edition of Parallèlement, including the Amies sonnets, completed on September 29, 1900 and announced in the Bibliographie de la France of January 19, 1901. The edition is illustrated with 109 original lithographs by Pierre BONNARD (1867-1947) printed in pink, and 8 woodcut drawings by the same artist by Tony Beltrand printed in black. This publication inaugurates Ambroise Vollard's rich career as an art publisher. "It's not surprising that Ambroise Vollard thought of Bonnard to illustrate Parallèlement by Verlaine. He was familiar with the artist's drawings for Marie; and he had seen the painting L'indolente, a drawing of which appears in the book, at the group exhibition organized by Durand-Ruel in May 1899. To accompany Verlaine's poems, Bonnard invented an irregular composition, the lithographs playing with the stanzas, embracing them, mingling with them or slipping into the margins, voluptuous and tender images whose power of suggestion is miraculously allied to the poet's art" (Antoine Terrasse, Pierre Bonnard, 1967, p. 61). Printing was carried out on the Imprimerie Nationale's hand presses, using a new typeface engraved in 1540 by Garamond on the orders of François Ier. The lithographs were hand-printed by Auguste Clot using a blood-pink ink that Bonnard had requested to render Verlaine's "poetic atmosphere". The edition was limited to 200 copies, plus 21 copies on Hollande vellum, lettered a to u, not mentioned in the justification, and a few chapel copies. This is one of 170 on Hollande wove paper numbered 31 to 200, bearing the number 98. A second-issue copy with a black illustration by the artist on the title, repeated on the cover. The Imprimerie Nationale was a little late in noticing the sensual nature of Verlaine's text and Bonnard's illustrations, and ordered that the Imprimerie Nationale mark and the leaf bearing the protocol statement "Imprimé par décision spéciale de Monsieur le Garde des sceaux, Ministre de la justice" be replaced as quickly as possible by illustrations by the artist. First-issue copies are therefore very rare. Boards slightly soiled, spine silk entirely fused, hinge of first board cracked. The interior is very well preserved, despite a brown mark on page 1 and occasional light transfers from the lithographs.