Jean Cocteau

A fine art deco binding of Cocteau's Thomas L'Imposteur by the French bookbinder Geneviève de Léotard.

• Jean Cocteau (French).
• Paris: NRF, 1927.
• Quarto.
• Colored frontispiece, headpiece and 38 plates with captioned tissue guards by Jean Cocteau.
• Number 103 of 320 copies (of 373 total) on papier vélin pur fil teinté Lafuma. 
• Signed "G. de Léotard. 1929" on front turn-in.
• Full emerald crushed levant, covers and spine decorated with geometric pointillé design of large dots stamped in gilt, silver and black, black morocco onlay, doublures of black morocco and emerald levant, black watered silk endleaves, marbled flyleaves, all edges gilt.
• In morocco-tipped marbled paper-over-board slipcase.

"The excitement of de Léotard's avant-garde covers lay in their fierce linearity and choice of modern materials.… Her graphic style was particularly inspiring and varied, incorporating crisp combinations of diverging or overlapping lines interspersed with grids of pointillé gold or aluminum dots" (Art Nouveau and Art Deco Bookbindings).

De Léotard studied at the Ecole de l'Union Centrale des Arts Décoratifs and was active professionally from her debut at the 1925 Exposition des Arts Décoratifs to 1939 (see Devauchelle III, pp. 168 and 268).