About the cover:

Full-grain binding Brown buffalo leather, decoration on front and back cover in art deco style with horizontal and vertical surfaces made of various materials such as applied dark purple maroquin leather, inlaid cream-coloured decorative leather, inlaid sapele mahogany veneer, inlaid reddish green Samenuri fish leather (stingray); above several fine and two thick gold lines; smooth spine with gold title.

Gilt edges on three sides, hand-stitched capital; mirror and flyleaf of fawn-brown velour material.

Half-leather chemise with buffalo leather, brown elephant skin paper cover, lined with fawn-brown velour material; slipcase with leather-bound opening and covered with brown elephant skin paper.

About the content:

F.-L. Schmied: Le Livre de la Vérité de Parole

Transcription of the Egyptian text by J.-C. Mardrus

Ex. No. 93 of 150 Ex.

About the artist: Taking over the family workshop in 1990, Alain Devauchelle runs the last complete Parisian workshop, where a number of "Meilleurs ouvriers de France" (Best Craftsmen in France) work together to create modern bindings as well as restoring, washing and pastiche antique decorations.

Characterised by a seductive elegance, Alain Devauchelle's work is first and foremost characterised by a great concern for construction inherited from Cubism and Art Deco. Shown all over the world, it already reveals two characteristics that will mark the future. On the one hand, the use of the rarest and most sumptuous skins available; on the other, the essential use of the printed letter as the foundation of the book, which, like his colleagues Pierre-Lucien Martin, Michel Richard and François Brindeau, the artist learnt to construct at the École Estienne.

Alain Devauchelle was ably assisted in his work by the virtuoso gilder Yvon Bramante, and in the late 1990s and the first decade of the new millennium he received well-targeted bibliophilic commissions from the Librairie Les Argonautes in Paris, where he organised five solo exhibitions, at least three of which have been catalogued.

The bookbinder's accidental death in 2011 sadly brought to an end a much-appreciated career.