Title: COMMON-PLACE BOOK WITH FOLK-ART CARVED ...
Publication Date: 1928
Binding: Hardcover
Book Condition: Very Good
84 pages (73 blank), common-place or occasional book. Fair copies in French in neat blue ink of Hymn to Beauty by Charles Baudelaire (first published in 1921), Les Pas and L'Insinuant by Paul Valery (published in 1921 and 1918 respectively), Les Chats (Baudelaire, 1857) & Le Sylphe (Valery, 1922). With an original poem in English entitled For You, from c.1950 with several sketches in pencil and in pen of a similar vintage. 135 x 205 mm. c.1928 unsigned hand-carved binding in ebonised ash (some slight superficial scratches). Folk-art depicting a young man's head and shoulders in profile; he is wearing traditional costume from the Jurgow or Spisz region of southern Poland (three hearts embroidered on his collar and a distinctive bead-banded hat) within a circular border above sunflower with leaves; floral corner-pieces at top; a fir tree and mountains in the background and single etched border surrounding. On the rear is carved "Edange Menage Polonaise". The unknown artist/carver may have originated from Poland but probably emigrated to France on the border of Luxembourg to the hamlet of Edange, Fameck, in the Moselle region of North-Eastern France. Brown cloth spine sympathetically repaired. All edges gilt. Decorative endpapers with gold eight-pointed stars in geometric lattice tesselating pattern. An artistically accomplished but still charmingly naive example of early 20th century folk-art carving. An attractive giftware ebonised binding of about a hundred years of age in very good condition. Seller Inventory # 5187