About the cover:

Full leather binding Dark blue morocco leather, orange and wine-red calfskin overlays in floral shapes on the front and back covers, with a night sky depicted between them with small golden stars and dots. Title and year on the spine in gold. Hand-engraved headband and three-sided gilt edge. Mirror and flyleaf in burgundy suede, narrowly edged on all sides with red morocco leather, mirror side bord-à-bord. Half-leather chemise with narrow leather rail, cover in dark blue coloured paper, lined with brown smooth leather. Same gilding on spine as on cover.

About the content:

Stéphane Mallarmé: Les Poésies with a frontispiece by F. Robs, copy no. 17 of 50 on Japon Impérial, out of a total of 150 copies, Édition Chez Edmond Deman, Brussels, 1899

In his poetry, Stéphane Mallarmé explores the idea that language and poetry can convey a deeper meaning and beauty that goes beyond the obvious. He emphasises the importance of the unspoken and the suggestive, thereby challenging the boundaries of traditional poetic form and structure.

About the artist: Paul Bonet was as an electrician’s apprentice before joining his mother’s millinery business and building wooden mannequins. He only discovered bookbinding in 1920, and the trade became his profession in 1924. He concentrated exclusively on cover designs, having the work carried out by excellent craftsmen. “The decor of a cover must be a decorative synthesis of the book, the cover should express the book’s soul.”

Paul Bonet saw himself as an artist. His work was not only appreciated by bibliophiles, it also became known to the wider public through his designs for covers of edition bindings. In 1950, he was made a Knight of the Legion of Honour.