LOUYS, Pierre, and COLLIN, Raphaël. *Les Chansons de Bilitis - Lot 235

LOUYS, Pierre, and COLLIN, Raphaël. *Les Chansons de Bilitis*. Pierre Louÿs’s collection of ancient and erotic poems, delicately illustrated with thirty-three etchings based on works by Raphaël Collin, in a binding by Louise Durand-Pinard. The volume is accompanied by a handwritten note from the artist discussing the paintings he plans to exhibit at the 1903 Salon. Paris, A. Ferroud - F. Ferroud, Successor, 1906. Quarto, full Prussian blue morocco, spine with raised bands highlighted by a gold fillet, compartments adorned with gilded framing fillets featuring interlaced palmettes, triple gilded fillet framing the covers, interior edging in the same morocco leather with a similar framing border featuring interlaced gilded palmettes, linings, endpapers, and double endpapers of blue marbled paper, double gold fillet on the edges, guilloché caps, top edge gilt, untrimmed, covers and spine preserved, in slipcase. Binding signed “Durvand - Pinard rel.” IX - 181 pp., 33 engravings, including 7 full-page plates. Front cover detached, spine joints slightly rubbed. A very fine edition of the famous literary hoax by Pierre Louÿs (1870–1925), illustrated with 33 original etchings in the “serpentes” style after Raphaël Collin (1850–1916), including 7 full-page plates. Limited edition of 325 copies; this is one of the 206 numbered copies on Arches vellum paper (no. 246). Engraved by Charles Chessa and printed by Charles Wittmann, the Symbolist-inspired illustrations are remarkable for their finesse and delicacy, evoking a poetic eroticism devoid of any vulgarity—a trait unfortunately often found in other illustrated editions of Pierre Louÿs’s works. The author presents his text as a translation of Greek poems attributed to a fictional priestess from the 6th century BCE, going so far as to invent a false biography in the introduction to his verses. Our copy is accompanied by an autograph letter signed by Raphaël Collin (1½ pages, in-12 format, Paris, April 15, 1903) confirming two of his paintings exhibited at the 1903 Salon. "The more significant one, 'Quiétude,' depicts a young, dark-haired woman in vivid colors, viewed from the front, with her hair tied back in bands, naked to the waist and leaning against a tree in a rather dark grove. Her arms are raised behind her neck, and a pale yellow flower is in her hair; her legs, cut off above the knees, are draped in a dark yellow fabric. The second painting, *Contemplation*, is a bust of a dark-haired woman with a swarthy complexion, seen in profile, her hands (thoughtful?), in a meditative pose; the drapery falling from her bare shoulders is primrose yellow—the background is also a landscape"... The bookbinding, slightly later in full ornate blue morocco, is signed by Louise Durvand-Pinard, daughter of the bookbinder Lucien Durvand. Having worked independently only from 1924 to 1934—that is, from her father’s death until her own—her bookbindings are quite rare. A fine copy of this refined illustrated edition.