MALLARMÉ (Stéphane).

Pages. Brussels, Edmond Deman, 1891. Large in-8, paperback, old red morocco spine folder and slipcase (Devauchelle). Partly original edition, decorated in frontispiece with a very beautiful etching by Auguste Renoir. This etching was one of the first made by Renoir, who was not very sensitive to this mode of expression (see François Chapon, Le Peintre et le livre, p. 25). Mallarmé planned a rich illustration for this work, which was originally entitled Le Tiroir de laque, and he had admirably chosen his illustrators: J.-L. Brown, Degas, Renoir, Berthe Morisot, and perhaps Monet as well. Brown was to do the cover, "after one of the most beautiful people in Paris", Degas probably a dancer, to illustrate the pages on the ballet (but we have nothing precise), Berthe Morisot "Le Nénuphar blanc" and Monet "La Gloire". All of them finally declined, after more or less extensive attempts, except Renoir: a beautiful etching of an opulent nude with flowing hair evokes in the frontispiece "Le Phénomène futur" (cf. Mallarmé, Correspondance, 1969, t. III, p. 10). One of 50 copies on japon, the only ones containing Renoir's frontispiece in double state.