This
edition of Casanova's Histoire de ma Vie was issued in 1931-1932 by
the Parisian publishers Javal et Bourdeaux under the more common
known title of the Histoire: 'Mémoires de Casanova', in ten quarto
volumes of 2335 copies each.
Of this
impression 2000 copies were printed on vélin du Marais, numbered
from 336 to 2335.
225
copies on vélin d'Arches, numbered 111-335, each carrying two
states of the Leroux-prints: in colour and in bistre (brown).
75
copies on vélin d'Arches, numbered 36-110, each carrying three
states of the Leroux-prints: in colour, in bistre (brown), in blue,
and with one original water colour.
35
copies on Japanese Imperial, numbered 1-35, with the images in three
states (as before) and each with three original water colours.
This
Internet presentation has been based on number 354.
The
original edition was printed by Maître imprimeur R. Coulouma in
Argenteuil.
The
original water colours by Auguste Leroux have been reproduced by way
of a technique which is no longer used by publishers nowadays: the
technique 'au pochoir'. In it the image is 'divided' in several
parts or colours, the 'space' of each part or colour being cut out
in a carton mask, all the different masks together constituting the
complete image. Thus, one water colour or drawing by the artist was
handled for reproduction, somewhere half-way between 'exemplaires
uniques' by the artist and mass production from the printing press.
Such illustrations were mostly handled by 'ateliers' where gifted
young women worked themselves through the day by doing their part or
colour. In the case of our Casanova edition the images were produced
from Leroux' original water colours by the Ateliers Daniel Jacomet
& Cie, Paris. |