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an image of a chocolate box with a clock on ita close up of a piece of chocolate on a white surfacea picture of a picture of a picture of a picture of a picture of a picture of a picture of a picture of a picture of a picturean open book on a white surface with a black borderillustration of a book with a picture of a man and a woman in a boatan old book with a black cover and gold foil on itthe book is brown with gold trimmings and a black cover
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1362 - DENIS (Maurice) & GIDE (André). *Le Voyage d'Urien*. Paris, …
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Estimate €3,000 - €4,000
Sale commission
Description
DENIS (Maurice) & GIDE (André). *Le Voyage d'Urien*. Paris, Librairie de l'art indépendant, 1893. In-8 in a brown box, the covers and spine decorated with a geometric design inspired by Pierre Legrain, comprising mosaics in black box, grids and blind-stamped borders, and broad horizontal gilt borders of varying dimensions, with the title embossed in blind on the front cover (whose initials, V and U, are set in lemon-coloured boxes); decorated interior binding, black suede endpapers and linings, gilt edges on the paper block, original illustrated cover preserved, in a slipcase (Mercher). First edition; the first work illustrated by Maurice Denis, featuring a woodcut on the cover and 30 original monochrome lithographs, including two full-page illustrations. Printed in a run of 301 copies on laid paper (no. 156). “A masterpiece of Art Nouveau” (The Artist and the Book, no. 76), the illustrations for which were created as the text was being written. Having seen the previously unpublished drawings that Maurice Denis had produced for *Sagesse*, Gide asked him to illustrate *Le Voyage d’Urien*; the importance the author attached to the painter’s collaboration is underlined by the fact that their names appear on the title page in letters of equal size. The arrangement of the images within the text is most harmonious: Maurice Denis’s Symbolist lithographs—virtually the only examples of his work as an illustrator—are in pink and bistre for *Voyage sur l’Océan pathétique*, light brown and sepia for *Voyage sur la Mer des Sargasses*, and green and black for *Voyage vers une mer glaciale*. This volume occupies an important place in the history of the illustrated book, as it is the first book to feature colour lithographs. A few slight rubs at the edges, otherwise a superb copy, very elegantly bound by Henri Mercher in 1963, from this very rare and sought-after edition.
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About the sale MONTIGNAC – 31st BOOK SALE – Day 3 of 4 – Nos. 1085 to 1642
Auction location
Auction time 08/21/2026 at 2:00 PM
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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