COLETTE Sidonie-Gabrielle. Chéri illustré de 57 pointes sèches originales gravées par Vertès. Paris: Éditions de la Roseraie, 1929.
4to (292 × 232 mm). Two volumes. Vol. I: 171 pp., (2) ff. Vol. II: suite of drypoints in first and second states, unnumbered. Full wine-coloured morocco, raised bands, gilt lettering, gilt edges on uncut leaves; doublures in blue morocco and blue tabis endpapers; original wrappers and backstrips preserved; slipcases. Binding by Blanchetière.
A superb copy of this highly sought-after modern illustrated edition (“très recherchée et cotée”, Carteret). One of 50 copies for the artist and his friends, printed on Japon, with the drypoints in triple state, together with ten additional loose plates in three states, the six refused plates, and an original signed pencil drawing by Vertès, used for one of the illustrations.
The colophon corrects the publisher’s mistake, giving the true number of illustrations by Vertès as 47, not the 57 stated on the title-page.
A remarkable production, one of the finest artistic collaborations on Colette’s great novel; Vertès’s elegant, sinuous line and modernist sensibility have long made this edition one of the most desirable Colette–illustrated books of the twentieth century.
Slipcases rubbed; one split along several centimetres. Light white traces of polish to the boards. From the library of Bernard Bloch-Levalois, with his gilt-stamped ex-libris on the front endpaper.
