286 - André Masson - André Maurois. *Les Érophages*. Original color engravings by André Masson. Paris, Les Éditions la Passerelle, 1960. Includes 16 full-sheet color aquatint etchings, as well as three gold-colored etchings on the cover. Loose double sheets in original envelope, painted slipcase, and slipcase.

André Masson - André Maurois. *Les Érophages*. Original color engravings by André Masson. Paris, Les Éditions la Passerelle, 1960. Includes 16 full-sheet color aquatint etchings, as well as three gold-colored etchings on the cover. Loose double sheets in original envelope, painted slipcase, and slipcase. Auction time: approx. 3:40 p.m. (schedule subject to change) One of 104 subscription copies for members, featuring an additional print of the second etching in gold on “Japon Nacré,” without aquatint but signed and marked “Essai” (total edition of 146). - Signed by the artist, author, and publisher in the colophon. - Drawing on a principle by Jonathan Swift, André Maurois conceived the fantasy world of a Gulliver-like land where thirst—rather than sexual desire—drives the race in whose habitat a couple has become stranded. The thirst of these “Érophages” is quenched by feeding off one another from a breast. The humor and sensuality found in these illustrations are rather rare in Masson’s work. (see Saphire/Cramer, p. 122). Saphire/Cramer 47. - Monod 7963 45.0 × 35.5 cm. 86, [10] pages. - Throughout with foxing. English description: Includes 16 full-sheet color aquatint etchings and three gold-colored etchings on the cover. Loose double sheets in their original wrapper, together in a painted chemise and slipcase. One of 104 subscription copies for members, with an additional print of the second etching in gold on “Japon Nacré,” without aquatint but signed and inscribed “Essai” (total edition of 146). - Signed in the colophon by the artist, author, and publisher. - “Borrowing a principle from Jonathan Swift, as he acknowledges in his introduction, André Maurois concocted a fantasy of a Gulliverian land where thirst, rather than sexual hunger, drives the race in whose habitat a couple are marooned. The thirst of these “érophages” is quenched by feeding one another from a breast that is part of the right arm. Their culture, therefore, has idealized in art not the nude or the female bosom but the arm with its “private” part. Lovemaking, on the other hand, is accepted with the same public nonchalance as drinking is in the normal world. With the nonchalance accorded to sexuality and the passion devoted to feeding from the effectively sexual “arm-breast,” Maurois has provided Masson with subject matter that is doubly erotic. Not only is there a certain amount of humor in Masson’s illustrations—aside from the introductory portrait of the author—but the sensuality of these illustrations, particularly in their coloration, is rarely found even in Masson’s work.” (Saphire/Cramer, p. 122). Foxing throughout.