198 - Francis PONGE. Cinq sapates. Etchings by Georges Braque. Paris, 1950. Folio, loose-leaf, hardcover, in the publisher’s brown cloth slipcase.

Francis PONGE. Cinq sapates. Etchings by Georges Braque. Paris, 1950. Folio, loose-leaf, hardcover, in the publisher’s brown cloth slipcase. First edition: illustrated with 5 original half-page etchings by Georges Braque. A single print run of 101 copies, all on Richard de Bas Auvergne rag paper (No. 8). “This is indeed […] a book of great commitment: Ponge strove relentlessly to achieve the very best for this act of self-giving and the world; Braque did not merely slip compositions in the ‘Braque style’ between the pages, but immersed himself deeply in the subject and, on five astonishing occasions, reinterpreted the object under Ponge’s consideration. […] And the mutual freedom of the two members of this daring duo hardly seems to suffer from the absence of a publisher—far from it” (Yves Peyré). Autographed copy with a dedication on the half-title page, on which the name has, alas, been crossed out: To … whose precocious passion for beauty I admire—your old friend, Francis Ponge. This is likely Franz Hellens (1881–1972): the Belgian writer was associated with Francis Ponge. He was also associated with Henri Michaux, whose first text he published in the journal he was then editing, *Le Disque vert*, and it was he who recommended Michaux to Jean Paulhan—whose role in Henri Michaux’s life, as we know, was significant. A few notes. (Peyré, *Peinture et Poésie*, p. 149.—Coron, *50 Illustrated Books Since 1947*, No. 13: “Cinq sapates stands out not only as one of the most beautiful postwar books but also as the purest of the books illustrated by the painter during the same period.”—The Artist and the Book, 1860–1960, no. 37.)