SAUVAGE, Sylvain (ill.) ; FRANCE, Anatole ; Les... Lot 24

SAUVAGE, Sylvain (ill.) ; FRANCE, Anatole ; Les opinions de monsieur Jérôme Coignard...avec des figures du sieur S. Sauvage, Paris : A. et G. Mornay, 1924. In-8 of 215 p., frontispiece. Red half-maroquin, spine ribbed, gilt title, covers preserved (binding signed Poullain-Renard in Dijon). A very good and well preserved copy. Edition illustrated by Sylvain Sauvage with a coloured frontispiece and headpieces to each chapter, lettering, large culs-de-lampe. Magnificent illustration as described by Beranrd Saugier : " The woodcuts of the Opinions have the soft clarity of Anatole France's style. Colour makes its appearance, for the cover a woodcut coloured by stencil, for the frontispiece an etching drawn by Haasen. The sign of the Petit-Bacchus is the portico of the book, after which the lively rhythm of black and white makes the colour disappear. With the good-naturedness of the 18th century, these images and lines live together. [Sauvage understood that Jérôme Coignard and Anatole France could do without his illustrations. So he leaves them to their own devices and escorts them from afar, while he takes care of the street and the atmosphere. As an architect of the past, Sylvain Sauvage visits old Paris [...] He brings a whole society into these engravings, the baker's boy, the public letter writer, the bookseller, the fortune teller [...] All these pre-Haussmannian paintings can be seen with simplicity. What they have in common is that they are carefree and have the accent of the active little people of the capital." (cf. Saugier, Bernard. Sylvain Sauvage, 2014, pp. 117-118).