Choix de Poésies
Conder, Charles. Verlaine, Paul
Paris. Bibliothèque Charpentier. 1904
A beautiful copy in purple morocco by the Guild of Women-Binders' Woolrich sisters, presented by Charles Conder to his patron Mary Davis and with six signed original drawings in ink, crayon and watercolour.
Conder's presentation is in black ink to the verso of the title: 'To Mrs. Edmund Davis Souvenir of / Christmas Paris 1905 from Charles Conder'.
Mary Davis (1866 - 1941) née Halford, was the wife of Edmund 'Napoleon of the Cape' Davis (1861 - 1939), later Sir Edmund, the Australian-born British mining financier of Lansdowne Road and Chilham Castle, who had given up an artistic career for gold-mining, accruing a serious fortune. Mary Davis was an accomplished artist (like Conder she painted many fans and some of their fans were exhibited together in New York in 1914), and together the Davises were magnaminous patrons who amassed a large collection of paintings by Old Masters and their contemporaries among them several important paintings by Whistler. Conder had first encountered Mary Davis in Paris in the 1890s and later the collector patrons gave Conder his first important commission - for Conder it was highly significant and led to others - the decoration of the 'Adam' room in their Holland Park house.
Conder's gift, the present volume of Verlaine with its elaborate inserted drawings and watercolours, is clearly a profound thank you from an artist to his patron. The Davises were supporters, and generous ones, of the artists they admired and Conder's gift seems a fitting tribute to a patron whose sympathies - artistic and poetic - lay with his own. The watercolours all take their inspiration from Verlaine and are entitrely in keeping with his wider oeuvre, decorative, colourful and tending to the rococo, and reflecting and complimenting the decorations for the 'Adam' room, the paintings on silk and the fans of Conder's that the Davis had collected. Conder's own copy of Verlaine, now apparently in the Dixson Library in Sydney, was also illustrated in pen and wash, a clear indication of the significance of the present copy.
'If the imagery of Conder's watercolours on silk derived formally from Watteau, he added another layer. It derived from nineteenth-century literary reinterpretations of the artist, particularly by Paul Verlaine, whose poems after Watteau's 'Fêtes galantes' were published in 1869. Conder's copy of Verlaine's 'Choix des poesies' [sic], which he illustrated in pen and wash, is now in the Dixson Library in Sydney.' (Ann Galbally).
Conder's original drawings and watercolours are as follows:
- pictorial and manuscript half-title in ink to a sheet of thin paper recto backed to the frontispiece reproducing Carrière's painted portrait of Verlaine: headed with a banner with 'PAUL VERLAINE', amid colonnades, a large satyr atop an altar with the title 'CHOIX / DE / POESIES' with vaguely phallic symbols before it, is supported and caressed by two nude females with, at right, a cavorting female harlequin;
- inserted leaf of thick paper (facing Conder's presentation and preceding Coppée's 'Préface', i.e. before page i) with watercolour recto, signed in pencil at lower left, depicting a seated, sleeping Verlaine seen through an arch or architectural feature and with a muse, presumably Calliope, at right, shown placing a wreath on the sleeping poet's head;
- inserted leaf in the section 'Fêtes Galantes' and facing the poem 'Clair de Lune' (pg. 63) with an elaborate scene in watercolour verso of a picnic or garden party with eight figures, some seated, before and beside a large sculptural fountain with a tree at far right, the makle and female figures in elaborate and colourful costume, a foreground figure of a lady displays a fan;
- inserted leaf before the poem 'Aquarelles' (pg. 141) in 'Romances Sans Paroles' with a crayon drawing recto in landscape format, executed in a variety of blues and reds, signed at lower right, of a seated woman with bare legs and bright red hair in profile, she wears a hat and a flowing flowery robe, with a large decorative urn behind her, she is regarding something she holds in her lap, perhaps a book she reads or a cat she caresses;
- inserted leaf before the section title for the selections from 'Amour' (pg. 265) with a crayon drawing verso with additional watercolour signed at lower right in pencil with, at right, a woman in pink and wearing a pink hat hanging garlands from a central statue of a grinning satyr on a plinth, with vines and grapes above and above left with a hanging cupid;
- inserted leaf before the section title for 'Parallèlement' (pg. 311) with recto a crayon drawing recto of a bearded figure seated at a table, it can only be Verlaine but his hat gives him the appearance of a highwayman, before whom are sheets of paper, an ink well and a seemingly effervescent drink, the figure aparently in the act of composition and with a female figure in elaborate and strikingly contrasting costume and hat in profile over the left-hand shoulder;
'Their appeal (Conder's decorations for the Davis' 'Adam' room) lay in their power to suggest and evoke - but not to challenge. Wood sees the painted watercolours on silk panels as 'full of fancy; crowded with images, pictures and memories of faded things' - specifically evoking Verlaine's aesthetic. The Davises fully subscribed to Conder's ability to cast a spell, letting them and their artistic friends live imaginitively in another age. His work provided a visual key for them, unlocking the door to another time when all was youth, beauty and amorous intrigue.' (Ann Galbally).
'Edmund and Mary Davis had a strange house in Lansdowne Road, Notting Hill, for a room of which Charles Shannon and Charles Ricketts suggested to their patrons that Conder should do decorative paintings. Originally the house had been quite ordinary and commonplace, but it was very dear to Edmund and his wife, because it brought their modest beginnings back into their recollections. Year after year the semi-detached villa grew, their collectiopn of treasures increased till the walls would hold them no longer. At each of my visits to London I found another floor and a new wing which extended out over the garden. Then they spread across the road, and wonderfully appointed stables, a swimming-bath, and a tennis-court covered the ground floor of a building of studios for artists (of whose company were Shannon and Ricketts). In this Mother Hubbard house Edmund and Mary were always on the look-out for a chance to give young artists commissions to do new decorations. Conder's hour had struck.' (Jacques-Emile Blanche).
'Conder ... was an artist possessed of vast and astonishing powers of invention, and a brilliant colourist. He showed his genius in the decorative panels he designed ... for Mr. Bing, Mr. Edmund Davis, and others. These were achievements which would have gained him in other ages constant employment in adorning public buildings or palaces ... Indeed as a decorative artist and painter-poet who created and lived in a fairyland of his own, Conder certainly deserves some record.' (Frank Gibson).
'Ellen (Nelly) G. Woolrich probably learned to bind from Cockerell or from Sangorski and Sutcliffe. She was working at 5 Bloomsbury Square when she exhibited in the A & CES exhibition in 1903 and in Antwerp in 1904. She and her sister Sofita were Americans... '. (Marianne Tidcombe).
[see Ann Galbally's 'Charles Conder: The Last Bohemian', Melbourne, 2002, pp. 256 - 261; see Frank Gibson's 'Charles Conder: His Life and Work ... &c.', London, 1914; see Jacques-Emile Blanche's 'Portraits of a Lifetime &c.', London, 1937; see Marianne Tidcombe's 'Women Bookbinders 1880 - 1920', London, 1996, pg. 173].
Conder's presentation is in black ink to the verso of the title: 'To Mrs. Edmund Davis Souvenir of / Christmas Paris 1905 from Charles Conder'.
Mary Davis (1866 - 1941) née Halford, was the wife of Edmund 'Napoleon of the Cape' Davis (1861 - 1939), later Sir Edmund, the Australian-born British mining financier of Lansdowne Road and Chilham Castle, who had given up an artistic career for gold-mining, accruing a serious fortune. Mary Davis was an accomplished artist (like Conder she painted many fans and some of their fans were exhibited together in New York in 1914), and together the Davises were magnaminous patrons who amassed a large collection of paintings by Old Masters and their contemporaries among them several important paintings by Whistler. Conder had first encountered Mary Davis in Paris in the 1890s and later the collector patrons gave Conder his first important commission - for Conder it was highly significant and led to others - the decoration of the 'Adam' room in their Holland Park house.
Conder's gift, the present volume of Verlaine with its elaborate inserted drawings and watercolours, is clearly a profound thank you from an artist to his patron. The Davises were supporters, and generous ones, of the artists they admired and Conder's gift seems a fitting tribute to a patron whose sympathies - artistic and poetic - lay with his own. The watercolours all take their inspiration from Verlaine and are entitrely in keeping with his wider oeuvre, decorative, colourful and tending to the rococo, and reflecting and complimenting the decorations for the 'Adam' room, the paintings on silk and the fans of Conder's that the Davis had collected. Conder's own copy of Verlaine, now apparently in the Dixson Library in Sydney, was also illustrated in pen and wash, a clear indication of the significance of the present copy.
'If the imagery of Conder's watercolours on silk derived formally from Watteau, he added another layer. It derived from nineteenth-century literary reinterpretations of the artist, particularly by Paul Verlaine, whose poems after Watteau's 'Fêtes galantes' were published in 1869. Conder's copy of Verlaine's 'Choix des poesies' [sic], which he illustrated in pen and wash, is now in the Dixson Library in Sydney.' (Ann Galbally).
Conder's original drawings and watercolours are as follows:
- pictorial and manuscript half-title in ink to a sheet of thin paper recto backed to the frontispiece reproducing Carrière's painted portrait of Verlaine: headed with a banner with 'PAUL VERLAINE', amid colonnades, a large satyr atop an altar with the title 'CHOIX / DE / POESIES' with vaguely phallic symbols before it, is supported and caressed by two nude females with, at right, a cavorting female harlequin;
- inserted leaf of thick paper (facing Conder's presentation and preceding Coppée's 'Préface', i.e. before page i) with watercolour recto, signed in pencil at lower left, depicting a seated, sleeping Verlaine seen through an arch or architectural feature and with a muse, presumably Calliope, at right, shown placing a wreath on the sleeping poet's head;
- inserted leaf in the section 'Fêtes Galantes' and facing the poem 'Clair de Lune' (pg. 63) with an elaborate scene in watercolour verso of a picnic or garden party with eight figures, some seated, before and beside a large sculptural fountain with a tree at far right, the makle and female figures in elaborate and colourful costume, a foreground figure of a lady displays a fan;
- inserted leaf before the poem 'Aquarelles' (pg. 141) in 'Romances Sans Paroles' with a crayon drawing recto in landscape format, executed in a variety of blues and reds, signed at lower right, of a seated woman with bare legs and bright red hair in profile, she wears a hat and a flowing flowery robe, with a large decorative urn behind her, she is regarding something she holds in her lap, perhaps a book she reads or a cat she caresses;
- inserted leaf before the section title for the selections from 'Amour' (pg. 265) with a crayon drawing verso with additional watercolour signed at lower right in pencil with, at right, a woman in pink and wearing a pink hat hanging garlands from a central statue of a grinning satyr on a plinth, with vines and grapes above and above left with a hanging cupid;
- inserted leaf before the section title for 'Parallèlement' (pg. 311) with recto a crayon drawing recto of a bearded figure seated at a table, it can only be Verlaine but his hat gives him the appearance of a highwayman, before whom are sheets of paper, an ink well and a seemingly effervescent drink, the figure aparently in the act of composition and with a female figure in elaborate and strikingly contrasting costume and hat in profile over the left-hand shoulder;
'Their appeal (Conder's decorations for the Davis' 'Adam' room) lay in their power to suggest and evoke - but not to challenge. Wood sees the painted watercolours on silk panels as 'full of fancy; crowded with images, pictures and memories of faded things' - specifically evoking Verlaine's aesthetic. The Davises fully subscribed to Conder's ability to cast a spell, letting them and their artistic friends live imaginitively in another age. His work provided a visual key for them, unlocking the door to another time when all was youth, beauty and amorous intrigue.' (Ann Galbally).
'Edmund and Mary Davis had a strange house in Lansdowne Road, Notting Hill, for a room of which Charles Shannon and Charles Ricketts suggested to their patrons that Conder should do decorative paintings. Originally the house had been quite ordinary and commonplace, but it was very dear to Edmund and his wife, because it brought their modest beginnings back into their recollections. Year after year the semi-detached villa grew, their collectiopn of treasures increased till the walls would hold them no longer. At each of my visits to London I found another floor and a new wing which extended out over the garden. Then they spread across the road, and wonderfully appointed stables, a swimming-bath, and a tennis-court covered the ground floor of a building of studios for artists (of whose company were Shannon and Ricketts). In this Mother Hubbard house Edmund and Mary were always on the look-out for a chance to give young artists commissions to do new decorations. Conder's hour had struck.' (Jacques-Emile Blanche).
'Conder ... was an artist possessed of vast and astonishing powers of invention, and a brilliant colourist. He showed his genius in the decorative panels he designed ... for Mr. Bing, Mr. Edmund Davis, and others. These were achievements which would have gained him in other ages constant employment in adorning public buildings or palaces ... Indeed as a decorative artist and painter-poet who created and lived in a fairyland of his own, Conder certainly deserves some record.' (Frank Gibson).
'Ellen (Nelly) G. Woolrich probably learned to bind from Cockerell or from Sangorski and Sutcliffe. She was working at 5 Bloomsbury Square when she exhibited in the A & CES exhibition in 1903 and in Antwerp in 1904. She and her sister Sofita were Americans... '. (Marianne Tidcombe).
[see Ann Galbally's 'Charles Conder: The Last Bohemian', Melbourne, 2002, pp. 256 - 261; see Frank Gibson's 'Charles Conder: His Life and Work ... &c.', London, 1914; see Jacques-Emile Blanche's 'Portraits of a Lifetime &c.', London, 1937; see Marianne Tidcombe's 'Women Bookbinders 1880 - 1920', London, 1996, pg. 173].
pp. iv, 300. 8vo. (182 x 126 mm). Inserted leaf with manuscript and drawn pictorial half-title by Conder in ink backed to the frontispiece portrait of Verlaine (a reproduction of Eugène Carrière's painting), printed title with Conder's presentation verso (see below), inserted leaf with Conder's first original watercolour signed in pencil, two leaves with François Coppée's 'Préface' and selections from Verlaine's verse, each section with introductory title ('Poèmes Saturniens', 'Fêtes Galantes', 'La Bonne Chanson', 'Romances sans Paroles', 'Sagesse', 'Les Uns et les Autres', 'Comédie', 'Jadis et Naguère', 'Amour', Parallèlement' and 'Bonheur' illustrated with five inserted leaves each with an original watercolour or crayon drawing by Conder (see also below), final leaves with 'Table des Matières'. Contemporary purple crushed morocco by Ellen & Sofita Woolrich with their signatures gilt to rear pastedown, boards with double gilt rules to enclose a decorative border of gilt-surrounded azure morocco pointilles and linear gilt tooling, banded spine with related decor and 'PAUL VERLAINE' in six compartments, matching morocco turn-ins with pointille corner décor and rules in gilt, white vellum doublurres, t.e.g., peach velvet-lined, leather-covered lime cloth protective box with leather covers reproducing the décor of the binding.
#48631
