About the cover:
Full-grain binding Antracite-black goatskin, decoration on front and back cover, partly also running across spine, of flame-shaped deep embossed fields and narrow silver lines, supplemented with small gold triangles and blind small squares, gold line on standing and inner edges, barbed gilt edges on three sides, hand-stitched endpapers, mirror and flyleaf of dark coloured paper, slipcase with leather-lined opening, covered with the same coloured paper, lined with velour paper.
About the content:
Arthur Rimbaud: Choix de Poésies
With 28 drypoint etchings (two each) by Hermine David
Personal copy for Mme Creuzevault from a total of 190 copies on chiffon d'Auvergne with a suite of three originals bound in the front: 2 pencil drawings and a lavis (monochrome with diluted ink)
Édition d'Omphale, Paris 1946
About the artist: Roger Devauchelle was a bookbinder and bookbinding historian. His father had been killed in the First World War before Roger Devauchelle was born, and he had to leave school at the age of twelve to earn his living. He had a passion for drawing and books and learned bookbinding in Amiens.
During his military service in Paris, he met Georges Lahaye, who inspired him to take up the art of bookbinding. Later, in the Second World War, he was wounded and taken prisoner. He used the time in war prison to perfect his training with the help of a fellow inmate. Devauchelle could flee and joined the Resistance in the Landes in southwestern France, where he also opened his first studio.
Two years later, he moved to Paris. To perfect his techniques and comprehend the details, he dismantled high-quality bindings and expanded his skills to include hand gilding and edge gilding, taking advice from the best experts. Thanks to his uncompromising pursuit of perfection, he eventually became “Meilleur ouvrier de France” for binding, gilding and edge gilding.
