DESSINS POUR LA BIBLE | VERVE : REVUE ARTISTIQUE ET LITTERAIRE ... VOL. X, Nos 37 ET 38

Paris: Éditions de la Revue Verve, 1960. 36 cm. [17],95,[16] pp. including 96 monochrome plates, plus 24 color plates. Original color lithographic covers not present. In French. Brown morocco, red and tan morocco onlays, pictorially tooled in gilt, spine titled in gilt, turn-ins ruled in gilt, red suede doublures, all edges gilt. Binding signed in gilt by Catherine Stanescu. Housed in a clamshell case, quarter morocco and marbled paper over boards, gilt leather labels, tan suede doublures. Paper edges of case rubbed, joints and leather edges of case moderately scuffed and worn, else very good. Binding and contents of book fine.

In 1930, Paris art dealer and publisher Ambroise Vollard commissioned Marc Chagall to produce a suite of etchings illustrating the Hebrew Bible. The project precipitated Chagall's two-month visit the following year to the Holy Land, where he and his family were guests of Meir Dizengoff, founder and mayor of Tel Aviv. Chagall biographer Jackie Wullschlager describes the object of Chagall's journey as "not external stimulus but an inner authorization from the land of his ancestors, to plunge into his work on the Bible illustrations" (p. 349). The trip was transformative: art historian Jacques Lassaigne wrote that Chagall told him that Palestine gave him "the most vivid impression he had ever received," and Chagall stated in an address first delivered at Mount Holyoke College in 1943, "in the East I found unexpectedly the Bible and a part of my very own being" (Harshav, p. 77).

The result was two series of etchings and lithographs, the first published in 1956 and the present second series in 1960. Franz Meyer has described Chagall's Bible illustrations as having "the same religious force as the Bible itself" (p. 393) and their interplay with the Biblical text as an "astonishing variety of word and image, of visual representation and nonvisual suggestion" (p. 388).

From 1931 to 1959 - during three of the most significant decades of modern Jewish history - Chagall worked on the illustrations, producing 65 etchings before Vollard's death in 1939 and a final 40 for the first series between 1952 and 1956. Tériade had taken over publication from Vollard and in 1956 issued two uncolored and one colored signed and numbered editions of the series. Tériade issued reproductions of the etchings together with 29 lithographs as Nos. 33/34 double issue of VERVE magazine.

In 1958 and 1959, Chagall resumed the project to illustrate "themes generally not treated" in the earlier work. Tériade published the new series in 1960 as the 37/38 double number of VERVE, the magazine's final issues. This second series contains 96 monochrome etchings reproduced in heliogravure (photogravure) by Draeger Frères and 24 color lithographic plates and a color lithographic cover (not present here) printed by Mourlot Frères. An English-language American edition was published concurrently.

The present copy of DESSINS was finely bound by master bookbinder Catherine Stanescu (1908-1998), gracefully incorporating illustrations and design elements of Chagall's work in gilt and morocco onlay. Stanescu studied French-style bookbinding in Switzerland after fleeing her native Romania during the Communist takeover. In New York, where she eventually settled, Stanescu founded a studio and developed a devoted following of students, private and institutional clients for book restoration, and collectors of her artistic bindings.

Benjamin Harshav (ed.), MARC CHAGALL ON ART AND CULTURE (Stanford University Press, 2003).
Franz Meyer, MARC CHAGALL : LIFE AND WORK (Harry N. Abrams, [1964]).
Jackie Wullschlager, CHAGALL : A BIOGRAPHY (Knopf, 2008).
Deborah M. Evetts, "Obituary: Catherine Stanescu," in GUILD OF BOOK WORKERS NEWSLETTER 122 (1999).