DUGUET HUGUIER (Andrhee), PAUTOT (Marcel) & SAINT-EXUPERY (Marie de)

Le Pecheur de Lune.

HAND COLOURED GYPSOGRAPHS

8 Tipped in gypsograph prints by Marcel Pautot with an additional print on the upper cover. 420 of 500 copies. 8vo. Sized, 15x19.5cm, pp. [1-12], 13-73, [74-80]. Publishers original white paper wrappers, upper cover with onlaid gypsograph print by Pautot, lettered in red and black, covered with glassine jacket. Grasse, “Le Mail” Djenan Ourida. 1950, 1950.

£700.00

Very good, text pages darkened at edges.

Marcel Pautot was first and foremost a commercial sculptor and metalsmith, creating medals and perfume bottles in France during the mid-twentieth century, but he also experimented with printing, illustrating four books using the eccentric technique of gypsography. Gypsography was pioneered by another French sculptor, Pierre Roche, in the 1890’s and was best described by him as a ‘procedure by which one executes, inks and pulls prints on plaster’, creating a three-dimensional print with ‘a particular texture and great softness of modelling’ which was then hand-coloured, creating in effect a monotype.

Little is known about Pautot as an illustrator, but it seems likely that Le Pêcheur de Lune was his first attempt, with three other works following in quick succession. The text seems to have been printed by a local jobbing printer in Nice on the Avenue de la Victoire, whose typesetting and choice of paper leave something to be desired. The illustrations, on the other hand, were printed by Pautot himself, most likely from metal molds, and all are small vignettes, which were hand coloured, then cut out and glued onto plates tipped in to the text. A survey by William Cole of multiple copies of another work by Pautot suggests that this was an unregulated process, with each copy showing not only radical differences in the colouring of each image, but with a different selection of images in each copy. It is not clear whether this reflects the results of an amateurish and chaotic workshop or rather an artistic choice to make each copy unique, but the strength of differences in colouring between multiple copies does suggest intentionality.

Our copy of Pêcheur contains 9 prints, including the cover, which matches the copy held by the Bibliothecque Nationale de Francais, however other copies are recorded with 10; there is no sign of anything lacking from our copy and it may well be that this is simply a variant state. 5 copies visible on OCLC worldwide.

Stock No.
232022