DENIS, MAURICE Lot n° 893

GIDE, André Le voyage d'Urien. [Lithographs by Maurice Denis]. Paris Librairie de l'Art indépendant 1893 Pet. in-8° carré (qqs min. lithographs, rare and min. piq. in the inf. margin, leg. cover burnished). Soft ochre grief, gold threaded plates, smooth spine framed with double gold thread (burnished leg.), red leather etiq., paper endpapers dominated, gilt t., untrimmed, cover ill. cons. Case covered with the same paper. Rare and sought-after original edition. Edition of 300 copies + chinese and japanese qqs. One of the 300 on holland (n. 45). Magnificent symbolist (or neo-traditionalist as the artist prefers to call it) illustration composed of a woodcut vignette in black on the cover and 30 lithographs in text of variable size in 2 tones, each of the three parts of the book treated in a different colour. These are the only illustrations by Mr. Denis that were drawn directly on stone by the artist. It was Gide himself who, via the director of "L'Art indépendant", requested the artist's collaboration. A joint creation of a painter and a writer, the book is one of the first artist's books. "André Gide" and "Maurice Denis" (Christin) are named together as responsible for the work on the title page. Dedication aut. s. to Octave Maus "in homage". Gide maintained several contacts with La Libre Esthétique; he gave a lecture there in 1900; as for Maurice Denis, he took part in several exhibitions of the Brussels artistic movement. Ref. Naville VI. - The Turn of a Century 53. - Carteret XXth c., IV:184. - Christin Anne-Marie, "Un livre double : Le Voyage d'Urien par André Gide et Maurice Denis (1893)". In: Romantisme, 43 (1984), pp. 73-90. Prov. Octave Maus (1856-1919), great animator of cultural life in Brussels between 1884 and 1914, mastermind of the XX and La Libre Esthétique (dedication.).