PROVENCE (Marcel) - LOMBARD (Emile). PROVENCE ET PURETE. Aix - Lot 252

PROVENCE (Marcel) - LOMBARD (Emile). PROVENCE ET PURETE. Aix en Provence, Editions du Bastion, 1957. Large in-4°, white velvet bradel, highly ornate smooth spine, illustrated cover preserved, lined slipcase (Drouar). UNIQUE although justified (One of XV (n°IV) on Madagascar vellum). It is decorated with 24 unpublished compositions (7 full-page and 17 small ones in bands or as "culs de-lampe"), "in fire paint called Ignis by Emile Lombard d'Aix, painter encauste, creator of the process; ALL THE PLATES ARE ORIGINAL, they bear the artist's signature and therefore form, as far as the illustration is concerned, a unique whole that cannot be reproduced". This process of drawing with colored waxes melted by fire enabled the artist to achieve extraordinary effects. A fine copy bound by René Drouar, a former Devauchelle worker who settled in Aix in 1954.