Laurier - titlepage illustration for "Les Georgiques de Virgile" Vol. II

 

Aristide Maillol

  1861 - 1944 (biography)

c. 1940 / published 1950 

woodcut 

6 1/2 x 4 7/8"  

artist's stamped monogram in lower left 

65 of 100  

pencil editioned above monogram; titled in the block, lower mid-left 

Boston 175; Rauch 144; Rewald 156-161 

cream laid 

published (1950) 

Philippe Gonin, Paris 

5812 

$400.00 

Author: Publius Vergilius Maro (70 v. Chr.- 19 n. Chr.) Artist: Aristide Maillol (1861-1944): Paris, Gonin, 1937 [i.e. 1950] In February 1939, publisher Philippe Gonin released a prospectus in which he announced a new edition of the classic text 'The Georgics'. Of the 100 envisioned wood engravings by sculptor Aristide Maillol, Gonin believed that fifteen had already been finished, and that the rest would be completed within a month. This turned out to be overly optimistic: it would be years before the book was published. In order to promote it, Gonin wrote that Maillol cut his own wood blocks for this edition, but that was not the case: his sight was too poor (his eye disease had forced him to abandon carpet weaving in 1895, and he turned to sculpting instead). Maillol drew sketches on the plate, which were then cut under his supervision by expert engravers. Les géorgiques would be the third book Maillol produced for the Gonin brothers: he illustrated Ovid's L'art d'aimer (1935) and English and French translations of Lungus' Daphnis et Chloe (1937-1938). This successful collaboration would prove beneficial for the brothers Philippe and André Gonin, as they had a difficult start as publishers in the 1920s. The publisher was based in Paris from 1925 to 1939, after which the business was continued in Lausanne. The 121 wood engravings were printed on a hand-press by Philippe Gonin. The two-volume edition consisted of 750 copies – numbered on the press – on rag paper bearing a watermark (a nude seated above the names Maillol and Gonin) that strongly resembles the Cranach Presse watermark of the first Virgil edition. The French text has been printed on the left pages, opposite the Latin text on the right. Line numbers and initials for each verse appear in the margins, in black, like the rest of the text Maillol did not live to see the publication of this edition: the book only appeared in print six years after his death. Condensed from the Nationale bibliotheek van Nederland.