Le Bestiaire ou Cortège d’Orphée illustré de gravures sur bois par Raoul Dufy

This collection of poems was the first book illustrated by Dufy, who contributed 39 original woodcuts, including 4 full-page, 26 three-quarter-page, 4 vignettes and 5 decorative initials.

Apollinaire had initially thought of entrusting these thirty poems — fifteen of which had first appeared under the title “La Marchande des quatre saisons ou le Bestiaire mondain” in the literary review La Phalange (no. 24, 15 June 1908) — to Picasso, but ultimately turned to Dufy instead. In August 1910, he wrote to him, enclosing the list of poems, “certain qu’avec votre art que vous possédez bien et votre culture un idéal vous transportera et que le résultat de votre travail sera merveilleux.” Dufy himself confirmed the request: “C’est Apollinaire qui m’entraîna dans l’aventure du Bestiaire qui devait, selon lui, nous apporter gloire et richesse ! C’était en 1909” (Raoul Dufy, Plaisir du bibliophile, no. 7, 1926).

Le Bestiaire “remains one of the most original testimonies to the revival of the illustrated book as envisioned by poets. Apollinaire’s work later inspired Chirico, Marcoussis and again Dufy, but these posthumous encounters no longer belong to that heroic period when two young men supported one another” (Fr. Chapon). Deplanche was chosen as publisher and Gauthier-Villars, Willy’s uncle, as printer. The book was completed in March 1911 but, far from bringing fame and fortune, sold very poorly: managing to sell only about twenty copies, Deplanche transferred the remainder to the antiquarian bookseller Chevrel.

We have been able to trace only two other copies in this condition, in wrappers with the plain parchment cover (Lardanchet, 2007, no. 30; Vignes, Bibliothèque Clarac, 2018, no. 25); neither bears an inscription.

Provenance: the library of Georges Vriamont (1896–1961), musicologist, writer and publisher of musical scores; he notably published La Gamme d’amour by Ensor and numerous scores illustrated by Magritte.

Chapon, Le Peintre et le Livre, p. 134; Coron, De Goya à Max Ernst, no. 29; The Artist and the Book, no. 91: “Dufy’s first published and most important illustrations”; Fouché, 20; Pernoud, L’Estampe des Fauves, pp. 84–94; Tourlonnais–Vidal, Raoul Dufy, l’oeuvre en soie, pp. 22–27; From Manet to Hockney, Victoria & Albert Museum, 27; Castelman, A Century of Artists Books, p. 119.