GAUTIER Théophile Émaux et Camées.

Carteret, I, 329; Clouzot, 128; Vicaire, II, 544 and III, 910.

First edition, ‘in the rare publisher's hardback, which gives it a clear added value’ (Clouzot).

Émaux et Camées was Théophile Gautier's last collection. He began writing some of the pieces contained in the book in 1840. The first edition contained 18 poems, and Gautier continued to rework his volume until 1872. This definitive edition was greatly expanded, containing 53 poems.

This collection is one of the most emblematic of Parnassian poetry, and elevates Gautier to the rank of master of this movement. What mattered was beauty, ‘art for art's sake’, as Gautier himself put it (Preface to Mademoiselle de Maupin, 1835). Émaux et Camées is the extension and culmination of this thinking, recognised by his contemporaries such as Baudelaire, who devoted a text to him in which he praised the poet's ability to : ‘The search for beauty aims to establish a timeless work, and this is what Gautier advocates in the “Preface” to Émaux et Camées.

The work was conceived during major social and political upheavals: the 1848 Revolution and Napoleon III's coup d'état. Yet Gautier wrote: ‘Unmindful of the hurricane that whipped my windows shut, I made Émaux et Camées’. Art is what matters.

A very fine copy.

Stamp on verso of last leaf: ‘Saechs. Franzoes.Vertrag.1856.’ This stamp shows that the work was subject to the treaty between Saxony and France on literary property promulgated on 14 June 1856. The treaty protects both countries from counterfeiting, of which Leipzig is a prime example. An inventory of Saxon booksellers' holdings was drawn up to identify unauthorised editions. Copies not bearing this stamp were liable to confiscation and destruction by both printers and booksellers-publishers.