BERTRAND (Louis) Lot n° 164

Cardénio, the man with the fire-colored ribbons. [Paris], Librairie Hachette, [1933]. In-12 (195 x 135 mm), 256 pp.: black pollopas binding, bevelled boards and smooth spine, chrome-plated metal piece with the title in capitals on the first board, smooth spine with another titled metal piece, gilt and silver plated lining and wallpaper endpapers, gilt head, untrimmed, cover (Jotau binding). Illustrations in black by André Pécoud, 11 of them full-page. Perfect specimen of Jotau binding. Jotau bindings were made in the early 1930s in the workshops of Joseph Taupin, associated with Paul-René Brodard, printer of Coulommiers and administrator of the Hachette bookstore. These elegant semi-industrial art bindings are made of pollopas, a kind of resin similar to bakelite: they consist of two plates and a rigid spine articulated together by a hinge with a metal rod. The too high cost of manufacture and their great fragility put an end to their manufacture in the mid-1950s. Jérôme Callais, author of a very complete article on the subject, classified the format of these bindings in three categories, A, B and C, and listed 91 titles bound in Jotau: this copy belongs to type A2 and is listed in his list (cf. "Reliure Jotau (1933-1955)" in Bulletin du bibliophile, no. 1, 2018, pp. 120-143). Minute traces of oxidation on the chrome-plated title piece on the spine.