Les Géorgiques (Georgica). Texte latin et version française de l’abbé Jacques Delille. 2 vols.

With 122 orig. woodcuts by Aristide Maillol (including repetitions and some illus. initial letters, printed in black). 5 leaves (4 blank), 174 pp., 8 leaves (7 blank); 6 leaves (5 blank), 154 pp., 3 leaves (2 blank). Folio. Loose as issued. Orig. printed wrappers. In orig. half vellum folders and boards slipcases (slipcases and folders decorated with together 9 woodcuts printed in red and black). Paris, Philippe Gonin, 1937-43 (1950). One of 750 copies printed on Maillol-Gonin rag wove paper (i.e. "papier de pur chanvre et lin à grandes fibres"), watermarked with Maillol's seated nude. This present work containing fine illustrations cut by the famous French artist which are to compare with his woodcuts done for "Les Eglogues" by Vergilius published in 1926 by the Cranach Press. The genesis of this charming press book goes back to a trip to Greece which Maillol undertook together with Count Harry Kessler, founder of Cranach Press, and took over 30 years to be realised. "In 1908, returning from Greece., Maillol stopped at Naples and Pompeii and executed a few drawings. Shortly thereafter he cut the first block for the Georgica and was able to save it from a fire in 1915 which destroyed his Montval studio. In the following years he made a few other cuts for this volume, which than Kessler was unable to complete as a companion to the Eclogae. In 1937 Gonin urged Maillol to resume his work, and the last block was delivered to the publisher in September 1944, shortly before the artist's death. Most of the cuts were executed by craftsmen after Maillol's drawings on the block, since at that time his eyes were not strong enough for the cutting" (The Artist and the Book).- Nice copy. - Monod 11339; The Artist and the Book 1860-1960 (Harvard Coll. Library, Boston), 175; Rauch Cat. 6, Les peintres et le livre (1957), 144; cf. Guérin 198-215. LIVRES DE PEINTRE ; VARIA ; MODERN ILLUSTRATED BOOKS (1900-1999) ; CLASSICS ;