- 243
Konstantin Andreevich Somov
Estimate
15,000 - 20,000 GBP
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Description
- Konstantin Andreevich Somov
- Le Livre de la Marquise
- 2 editions of Le Livre de la Marquise
- Franz Blei, St. Petersburg: Golicke and Wilborg, 1918, 194 pages with vignettes and illustrations, 22 plates, some coloured, in original pink cloth boards lettered in gold, uncut, held in original board slip case with printed illustration worn with stains and foxing
Franz Blei, Venice: Cazzo e Coglione [i.e. St. Petersburg: Golicke and Wilborg], 1918, 254 pages with vignettes and illustration, 30 plates, some coloured, ink inscription at the end "tiré à deux cent trois / exemplaires / C.Somoff", later pink cork boards with pink calf edges, original pictorial wrappers bound in, pictorial dust jacket and held in a board slip case some wear - size of books: 258 by 198mm., 10 by 7 3/4 in.
Catalogue Note
To be sold together with an erotic lithograph after the same hand.
Franz Blei (1871-1942) originally commissioned Somov to design the frontispiece of the famous rococo book Das Lesebuch der Marquise, which contained German translations of excerpts from French eighteenth century prose and which he published in Munich in 1908. Ten years later, a French version of the book titled Le livre de la Marquise and illustrated by Somov was published clandestinely in St. Petersburg. Two versions of the book exist: a shorter one of 196 pages and an extended, uncensored edition with 253 pages, printed under the name of a fabricated publishing company, Cazzo e Coglioni, both of which are offered here.