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62 ELLIOTT, Maud Howe (ed.) Art and Handicraft in the Woman’s Building of the World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago 1893. Paris & New York: Goupil & Co, and Boussod, Valadon & Co, 1893 Large octavo. Original dark blue cloth, bevelled boards, spine and front board decorated in gilt and silver, the front with an elaborate strapwork design by Alice Cordelia Morse, floral-patterned gilt endpapers, edges gilt. Additional colour lithographed frontispiece by Madeleine Lemaire, numer- ous black and white photographic illustrations throughout. Spine ends and corners bumped, else a near-fine copy, the cloth particularly bright. first edition, in the rarer blue variant binding, attributed to the American arts and crafts designer Alice Cordelia Morse (1863– 1961). Having lobbied hard for an official place for women in the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893, activists in Chicago suc- ceeded in acquiring permission for the construction of a Woman’s Building. It was designed by Sophia Hayden, aged 21, the first fe- male graduate of the four-year architecture programme at MIT, and was at that time the largest exhibition building funded and devoted to exhibits of women’s work. This, the official handbook for the Woman’s Building, was edited by Maud Howe Elliott (1854–1948), daughter of the abolitionist and suffragist Julia Ward Howe, and comprises 30 contributions from women, including an essay on women illustrators by Morse, which underscore the professional achievements of those whose work was displayed at the Fair. The French painter Madeleine Lemaire (1845–1928) designed the post- er for the Building, featuring an allegorical figure epitomising the new, modern woman, which is reproduced in the guide as a colour lithographed frontispiece. The work is more commonly seen in a mustard brown cloth, with the same decorative strapwork. Dubansky, Mindell, The Proper Decoration of Book Covers: The Life and Work of Alice C. Morse , Grolier Club, 2008, 93–3. £500 [131545] 63 (EMBROIDERED BINDING; HELEN MARGARET DIXON.) [New Testament, in Greek.] Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1880 Octavo (149 × 110 mm). Finely bound in a contemporary arts and crafts em- broidered binding, incorporating a green, pink, white and blue floral design
around religious iconography and Greek lettering, gilt edges. Housed in a custom green velvet box. Frayed around extremities, else a near-fine copy. An exquisite example of late-Victorian embroidered binding by Helen Margaret Dixon, inscribed by John Ruskin, expressing his ad- miration, on the rear endpaper: “much admired by yours truly John Ruskin, 25th June 93”. The binding was shown to Ruskin by his cous- in Joan Severn at Brantwood that month, with a letter known from Severn to Dixon telling her of Ruskin’s esteem for her craft. Helen Margaret Dixon (1858–1955) wrote several collections of children’s stories, and later became a sister of the order of Saint Dominic. £4,750 [128504] 64 (FASHION; DACHÉ, Lilly.) La Dépêche. Reportages sur les élégances Parisiennes. De la couture et de la mode de Paris. Directrice Andrée Vaudecrane. [Together with:] La note de Paris, directrice Gladys Capgras. Paris: 1949–50 La Dépêche : 40 issues, tall quarto (328/310 × 210 mm). Original illustrated cream paper wrappers; 8 wire-stitched as issued, titles in blue to front cov- ers; 32 staple-bound in upper left corner as issued, titles in black to front cover (of these, 2 unopened and within their franked postage bands; folded: 210 × 115 mm). Together with 3 issues of La note de Paris : tall quarto (310 × 215 mm). Original illustrated yellow paper wrappers, cord-bound as issued, titles printed in black to front covers. Text in French and English. Illustrated throughout with ink sketches of designs. Slight nicks and creasing to edg- es, horizontal creases due to folding from postage, contents faintly toned, occasional rust marks from staples; a remarkably well-preserved set of this fragile publication. A largely unbroken, notably scarce, run of 40 issues of the French fashion magazine La Dépêche , dating from September 1949 until October 1950 , together with three issues of La note de Paris , from August and October 1950, with a key fashion association, the sub- scriber being renowned milliner, fashion designer, and female en- trepreneur Lilly Daché (?1892–1989), who ordered the titles during her “heyday in the 1940s and early 1950s” ( ANB ). Born in Bègles, France, Lilly Daché “began her millinery training with her aunt, a dressmaker in Bordeaux, but talent and ambition soon led to a four-year apprenticeship with Caroline Reboux in Par- is. She later worked for both Suzanne Talbot and Georgette, also noted Parisian milliners” [Reboux and Talbot are featured in La Dep- eche : Reboux, nos. 49 and 137; Talbot, nos. 116, 139, and 141] ( ANB ). She moved to New York in 1924 and found work in a small hat store,
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