Herodias

With illustrations by Georges Rochegrosse. Preface by Anatole France. Paris : Societe des Beaux Arts, 1895. Edition Artistique, limited to seventy-five copies for England and America (this is copy 21). Large octavo, 270 x 205 mm, in an exquisite Beaux-Arts binding of full crushed morocco, double fillet gilt border, triple fillet gilt frame, floral  design in gilt with detail in red and blue leather inlays, repeated on upper and lower boards, spine in compartments with raised bands, lettered and decorated in gilt with the floral design extending across the compartments, a couple of tiny nicks to edges else fine, elaborate floriated gilt dentelles, morocco pastedowns with floral central motif to upper and lower boards, silk moire free endpapers, marbled paper preliminaries, top edge gilt, others uncut, bookplate for Patterson to verso of endpaper, 19 original etchings by G. Rochegrosse, some with hand colouring, tissue guards, with an extra suite of all illustrations on 19 plates in proof colours with remarque vignettes. Text in English.

An exquisitely printed, and bound work from the Fin de siècle, illustrating Flaubert’s classic novella on John the Baptist, who had been imprisoned by Herod for publicly condemning his marriage to Herodias (his niece and former sister-in-law,) as incestuous.