475 - MARDRUS (Joseph Charles) & SCHMIED (François-Louis)

MARDRUS (Joseph Charles) & SCHMIED (François-Louis) Le Paradis musulman. Paris, F.-L. Schmied, 1930. In-4, blue box, boards and spine decorated with a geometric pattern of gilt or palladium fillets, cream paper lining and endpapers with a geometric pattern of gold fillets, gilt edges on witnesses, cover and spine, in an edged slipcase (Creuzevault). Spine slightly faded, slight rubbing to spine ends, some wear to slipcase. First edition, with illustration, ornamentation and typography by François-Louis-Schmied. The illustration comprises 31 compositions, including the cover, 7 full-page and 23 in the text. Woodcutting and printing were carried out in his workshops and under his direction. The subscription specifies that the book's model was exhibited at the Galerie Georges Petit in December 1927, and that the printing was completed on October 31, 1930. Edition of 177 copies on Japon. One of the rare copies with a separate double suite of all the illustrations, one in color and the other in black, printed at 25 copies and bound here in fine. Ex-libris R. B.L. A superb copy enriched by a very fine autograph letter signed by François Louis Schmied in pencil on the flyleaf: "Here's a story about our Doctor that you'll understand better than anyone, my dear Kid. I'm glad you chose it for your library. Your old friend." "Paradise, this book? Yes. Muslim? Hardly. Mardrus draws on Sufism to tell a religiously impertinent mystical tale. A young, handsome, mystical Sufi teenager, aspiring to see paradise, finds himself carried there by a fantastic bird... But for Schmied, Le Paradis musulman is the illustration of an invocative prayer to the stars through a gyration of gold amidst blue and red preciousness. His fairy-tale landscapes, treated like miniatures, his figures dressed in purple and gold, the sumptuous bigarrures of flowers, the gleaming brilliance of dragons and chimeras, make up a dazzling whole". Mario Nassi, Schmied B19.