Son Altesse La Femme [Her Highness the Woman]

Paris: A. Quantin, 1885. Limited Edition. Full Leather. Fine/No Dust Jacket As Issued.

Bound in full contemporary red morocco by David, with ornately tooled red morocco doublures decorated in gilt and inlaid with blue and white leather, ribbed deep blue silk pastedowns and flyleaves, with the original paper wrappers bound in as a double-page spread before the title; ex libris Cortlandt F. Bishop (1870-1935), with his gilt-tooled red morocco book ticket, All edges gilt; 4to; 7 by 10.75 inches. First edition, limited to 100 copies, the present copy unnumbered

Illustrated with engraved vignette to title, fifty small vignettes or text engravings, eleven text vignette borders or head-pieces, with an additional ten vignettes in a state without text printed on separate sheets, and ten tipped-in color plate illustrations.

The bindings are tight and square. Text clean, light even toning. Moderate shelf handling wear with leather on the front lower joint beginning to open.. Octave Uzanne was a 19th-century French bibliophile, writer, publisher, and journalist. He is noted for his literary research on the authors of the 18th century. He published many previously unpublished works by authors including Paradis Moncrif, Benserade, Caylus, Besenval, the Marquis de Sade and Baudelaire.

One of the topics his research focused on was the discussion of fashion and femininity in the French fin-de-siècle. This took the form of monographs and works including this issue Son Altesse la femme.

Bibliophilic Uzanne's fascination with women and fashion was tinged with an ambivalence that saw him revering and reviling his subject.

This work seeks to trace the history of French women. It begins ominously with the chapter, Le Vray Mirouer de Sorcellerie, [The True Mirouer of Witchcraft] and ends with an equally troubling La Parisienne Moderne, étude de physiologie spéciale et d'Attraction passionelle. The Modern Parisian, study of special physiology and passionate attraction]

Background Information:
Provenance: Cortlandt Field Bishop was an American pioneer aviator, balloonist, autoist, book collector, and traveler.

In 1923, Bishop bought America's premier auction house, American Art Association, from Thomas Kirby and installed Maj. Hiram Haney Parke and Otto Bernet as vice presidents and then proceeded to run his business from all over the world. In 1929, The Association merged with the Anderson Auction Company to form the American Art Association-Anderson Galleries, Inc. In August 1938, the firm was bought from Bishop's estate by Parke-Bernet Galleries, which had been formed a year earlier by Bishop's former auctioneers.  In 1964, Sotheby's purchased Parke-Bernet, then the largest auctioneer of fine art in the United States.

Binder: We believe the binder to be Salvatore David (1859-1929)  he "was the son of Bernard David, a noted Second Empire binder-gilder who worked for [Leon] Gruel before establishing his own atelier in 1855.

On his father's retirement in 1890, David took over the bindery and initially applied a similar, classically  inspired range of ornaments to his covers. But by 1900, he turned to éditions de luxe, which he decorated with a blend of gold fillets and garlanded flowers in a compelling and original manner.

In 1907, he moved his shop from 12 rue Guénégaud to 49 rue le Peletier, where he remained until his death. Important collectors of his work included René Descamps-Scrive and Freund-Deschamps" (Duncan & De Bartha, Art Nouveau and Art Deco Bookbinding, French Masterpieces 1880-1940, pp. 189-190).