MOSELLY Émile La Charrue d’érable.

Monod, 8500 ; Ray, 394 ; The Artist & the Book, 247.  

First edition printed in 116 numbered copies, this one No. 33, Géo Coste’s personal copy.   

On laid paper with a special watermark for the Société du Livre Contemporain, consisting of an architectural design surrounding the letters ‘L’ and ‘C’. The Eragny Press watermark is also visible (two leaves intertwined in a circle). 

La Charrue d’érable is unusual in its relationship with illustration. In fact, it predates the text. The 12 hors-texte illustrations were drawn by Camille Pissarro before his death in 1903, with a view to producing a book about working in the fields. Lucien called on Émile Moselly, who had won the Prix Goncourt a few years earlier with Terres lorraines and Jean des Brebis ou le Livre de la misère. Moselly was asked to write a story about peasant life and farming. He chose the story form to adapt to Camille Pissarro’s work, and the 12 drawings were integrated into 10 stories.  

Lucien, for his part, took his father’s work and engraved it in monochrome, embellishing it with no fewer than 30 auxiliary compositions in colour (headings, culs-de-lampe, lettering). He carried out this work based in particular on documents left by his father.   

He also found patrons in the Société du Livre Contemporain. Louis Barthou agreed to order the work for the bibliophiles in his circle and helped La Charrue d’érable to be one of the works selected for the Salon d’Automne in 1912.  

The result is a sensitive work on peasant life, some of the compositions reminiscent of the works of Jean-François Millet, even if we are aware of the rivalry between Pissarro and his contemporary. 

Moselly, who grew up in Lorraine, depicted a gentle atmosphere that was sometimes austere, but he managed to give an accurate vision of the countryside and its inhabitants.

Spine faded, disbound.