107 MATISSE, Henri (illus.); RONSARD, Pierre de. Florilège des amours de Ronsard. Paris: Skira, 29 November 1948 “there are always flowers for those who want to see them” First edition, number 68 of 250 copies signed by Matisse and by the editor. This is a stunning presentation copy, inscribed by the artist on the half- title to his oldest friend: “à mon vieux compagnon de la vie, le Dr Léon Vassaux . . . Nice, février 1949”, with three original floral illustrations added in red and blue pastel. The publication of a deluxe illustrated edition of the love sonnets of Pierre de Ronsard, a 16th- century French poet, was proposed by Matisse to the publisher in 1941. Originally intended to contain only 30 illustrations, the work was expanded and improved over 7 years, and finally published in 1948 with 126 original lithographs. “Emphasizing fidelity to his own artistic project rather than to that of the poet, Matisse set out to create a book based on his own selection and ordering of a fixed number of poems. As he put it in a letter to Rouveyre: ‘Ronsard is always by my side. He sings his song in all keys and I must
do something with it. I think I’ll simply produce a Matisse’ . . . The work represented Matisse’s personal interpretation of both Ronsard and sixteenth century styles of art production” (Brown, p. 114–16). We have traced just one other presentation copy of this work by Matisse, but without additional drawings, sold by Christie’s in 2014. Léon Vassaux was Matisse’s oldest childhood friend and lived next door to the Matisse family in Bohain-en-Vermandois. “The two boys were inseparable . . . At all events, he [Léon] would remain Henri’s firm friend and follower – in time of crisis his most faithful supporter – for the rest of their lives”
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was published in London on 6 November 1924 and in New York on 20 November. Octavo. Original green cloth-backed pictorial boards, spine lettered in black, pictorial endpapers, top edge blue, others uncut. Illustrated throughout by E. H. Shepard. Minor rubbing to spine ends, soiling to covers, wear to corners, closed tear at upper margin of, p. xiii, inner hinges split at pp. 34–5 and pp. 66–7, remaining firm, very occasional marks to contents, else clean. A very good copy. £5,000 [160214] 109 MILNE, A. A. Now We Are Six. London: Methuen & Co. Ltd, 1927 First edition. Published on 13 October 1927, it took only two months for Now We Are Six to eclipse the sales records of When We Were Very Young (1924) and Winnie-the-Pooh (1926). Alongside Milne’s verse, this collection is also notable for including many illustrations of Pooh, Piglet, and the other nursery toys, even when uncalled for by the poems. Octavo. Original red cloth, spine lettered in gilt, illustrations to covers in gilt, top edge gilt, illustrated pink endpapers. With dust jacket. Illustrated throughout by Shepard. Head of spine bumped, ends and corners rubbed, binding square and firm, cloth bright and internally clean; a near-fine copy in the jacket, spine lightly toned with very small nicks to head, small closed tears to top edge, covers clean and bright. £1,250 [151199]
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106 MAO, Zedong. Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung on Propaganda. Beijing: [no publisher,] 1967 chairman mao’s “foreign friends” Rare surviving copy of this remarkable compendium of important Maoist maxims produced by expatriate staffers at the Peking Foreign Languages Press, reflecting the readiness of many of Beijing’s foreign residents to throw themselves into the storms of the Cultural Revolution. The group produced barely 200 copies using a hand-operated mimeograph machine; none are now held institutionally. In the Cultural Revolution’s first year, state media trumpeted unwavering support for Mao and the movement among the small expatriate community living and working in the capital. These foreigners helped translate the latest propaganda into other languages, took to the streets to wave “little red books”, and joined the factional conflicts bubbling up on campuses and in workplaces. The work was compiled between February and November 1967 by seven “foreign friends”: Bob and Primerose Friend, Lucette Greishaber, Micheline Vuilleumier, Daniel Amphoux, Settimio Caruso, and Françoise Paron. Following the metaphor of an archer shooting
an arrow, the work is divided into six sections, with titles such as “the aims of our propaganda – why we shoot” and “style and form of our propaganda – kinds of arrows”. In the latter portion, the group articulate their own belief that propaganda must be accessible and grounded in reality, for example quoting Mao’s belief that “many comrades are extremely fond of using party jargon in their articles. Their writing is neither vivid nor graphic. It gives you a headache to read it” (p. 95). The small number of copies produced were distributed to political organizations around the city responsible for liaising with English-speaking guests and co-ordinating the production of Maoist propaganda in English for dissemination abroad. They are “a revealing source of the attitudes and goals of the activist foreigners living in China at this time who sought to be included in Mao Zedong’s radical vision” (p. 158). Landscape quarto. Original red cloth (Foreign Languages Printing Press, Beijing), Chinese title to spine in gilt, front cover lettered in gilt in English and Chinese, 191 leaves of mimeographed typescript, text recto only. With 4 Cultural Revolution ink stamps on front free endpaper recto and half- title. Cloth bright, a few marks, extremities rubbed, internally clean and bright, small loss to fore edge of, p. 86, not affecting text. A very good copy indeed. ¶ Ann-Marie Brady, Making the Foreign Serve China: Managing Foreigners in the People’s Republic, 2003. £5,000 [158688]
(Spurling, p. 18). It was Vassaux’s future brother-in- law, the amateur painter Léon Bouvier, who inspired Matisse to start drawing. Folio. Unbound sheets in original white wrappers. With glassine dust jacket. Housed in the publisher’s purple suede-backed white card folder and illustrated card slipcase. With 27 full-page and 98 in-text lithographs by Matisse, all printed on d’Arches paper. Sheet sizes: 384 × 282 mm. A lovely, fresh copy, trivial foxing to outer margins of a few leaves, otherwise internally clean and bright, in the lightly marked slipcase. ¶ Kathryn Brown, Matisse’s Poets. Critical Performance in the Artist’s Book, 2017; Hilary Spurling, The Unknown Matisse, vol. I, 2001. £35,000 [153664] 108 MILNE, A. A. When We Were Very Young. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1924 one of 100 signed copies from the american deluxe issue First US edition, deluxe limited issue, number 97 of 100 copies signed by the author, printed on large paper, and bound in pictorial boards. A further 400 deluxe copies were issued unsigned and unnumbered; the trade issue was in red cloth on smaller paper. It
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