26 - [ART NOUVEAU] LEFLER, Heinrich, and URBAN, Josef. Csoda Album.

[ART NOUVEAU] LEFLER, Heinrich, and URBAN, Josef. Csoda Album. A splendid New Year’s gift book, a collection of stories in Hungarian, typical of Art Nouveau illustration by two masters of the Vienna Secession. Budapest, Pesti Napló, 1911. In-4 (305 x 250 mm), publisher’s binding in green percaline, smooth spine with title running lengthwise and embossed in blind, front cover adorned with a large circular Art Nouveau design stamped in gold depicting a rich floral wreath surrounding the title in gold letters and enhanced with a scattering of gold-stamped flowers, inside covers and endpapers adorned with a gold-embossed chromolithographic diptych depicting an angel. 131 pp., decorative borders on every page, 30 color plates, including 12 on coated paper with captions in scrolls, vignettes in the text. Some scuffing, slightly worn caps and corners, gilding along the margin of the top cover slightly faded, first endpaper cracked along the hinge, one loose leaf, 3 endpapers marked with childlike pencil drawings. First edition of this Art Nouveau New Year’s gift book intended for subscribers to the literary journal *Pesti Napló*. Published under the direction of Gyula Szini (1876–1932), the collection brings together fairy tales written by the leading authors of Hungarian modernism during the Belle Époque, including Gyula Krúdy, Sándor Hunyadi, Miksa Bródy, Béla Révész, and Viktor Cholnoky. Remarkable Jugendstil illustrations by the Austrian brothers-in-law Heinrich Lefler (1863–1919) and Josef Urban (1872–1933), leading figures of the Vienna Secession: 12 large color plates, printed on coated paper and originally designed for their famous 1911 Andersen calendar. The volume also includes 18 plates in shades of brown and black (signed “H” or “H.A.” on the plate), depicting scenes from the fairy tales and characters from the text. Each composition is presented within its own decorative frame in platinum gray and gold. The ornamentation also features a beautiful chromolithographic diptych, enhanced with gold on the endpapers and half-titles, depicting a stylized angel spreading its golden and mauve wings against a starry sky. A fine copy in its original publisher’s cardboard slipcase.