Épigrammes romaines
Limited to 200 copies on vergé d'Arches paper, this copy no. 82.
The Épigrammes romaines belong to the early years of the Nouvelle Revue française, of which Schlumberger was one of the founders. Part of the collection had already appeared in 1909 in the NRF, notably in its fourth issue.
These brief pieces are not archaeological imitations of the ancient epigram, but a Rome dreamed through Virgil, Goethe and Keats: a meditation on desire, the passing of time and death, blending memories of Antiquity with a resolutely modern sensibility. Maurice Denis’s frontispiece answers this recomposed Antiquity: Quillard saw in it a true “Virgilian décor,” a serene counterpoint to Schlumberger’s more feverish poems.
From the library of Auguste-Pierre Garnier (1885–1966), poet, publisher and bibliophile, with his bookplate engraved by Pierre Gusman.