JARRY (Alfred) & Rémy de GOURMONT. YMAGIER (L'). Paris, - Lot 148

JARRY (Alfred) & Rémy de GOURMONT. YMAGIER (L'). Paris, Imprimerie Charles Renaudie, Two volumes (8 fasc.) bound in 2 vols. in-4, half parchment with corners, ornate spines, gilt head, untrimmed, ill. covers (Contemporary binding). COMPLETE COLLECTION of this interesting and extremely rare publication, written by R. de Gourmont, A. Jarry, and adorned with numerous illustrations in and out of the text: lithographs, woodcuts, etchings, color prints. Contains plates by Armand Seguin (Bretonnes, woodcut, Field, Strauss and Wagstaff 70), Douanier Rousseau (La Guerre, zincography), as well as plates by Rémy de Gourmont, Alfred Jarry (under the pseudonym Alain Jans), James Whistler, Paul Gauguin, Eric Forbes-Robertson, L. Roy, Jossot, O'Connor, Charles Filiger, Georges d'Espagnat, Emile Bernard and others. ONE OF THE VERY RARE EXEMPLES ON JAPON, containing all the hors-texte illustrations in two different editions, plus a number of additional plates. Limited to 515 copies, this short-lived quarterly was founded and edited by Rémy de Gourmont and Alfred Jarry. It was sponsored by Berthe de Courrières, Gourmont's friend and inspiration, and also financed by Jarry, who had just inherited the company. Jarry collaborated on the first five issues before falling out with Gourmont and founding his own magazine, Perhinderion. L'Ymagier aimed to renew the art of woodcutting through a return to primitive or folk art: "Images, and nothing more, religious or legendary, with just enough words to convey their meaning and convince the inattentive with a notion. Images first carved in wood, that material for idols, matrix of such good will; in metal, extending by a century the series of emblematic dreams." (R. de Gourmont, n° 1). The magazine is illustrated with a number of original prints (including La Guerre, the only Douanier Rousseau print, in no. 2) and reproductions of antique woodcuts (after Cranach, Dürer, etc.), as well as large Epinal images printed on the original woodcuts. OF NOTE IS THE ONLY ENGRAVING BY DOUANIER ROUSSEAU: LA GUERRE, A LITHOGRAPHIC PEN-AND-INK DRAWING, PRINTED ON STRONG ORANGE IMITATION JAPON PAPER. By James Whistler, an original lithograph printed on Chine, Girl with bowl (Way, no. 82). A PERFECT COPY. From Manet to Hockney, Victoria and Albert Museum, 1985, no. 11; Chapon, Le Peintre et le Livre, 1987, pp. 35-36.