Odilon REDON. [A throw of the dice will never abolish chance]. La Femme au hennin, [1898]. Lithograph (30 x 24) on Chine volant with full margins, monogr. lower right, formerly mounted by the right edge on 1 blue recovery f. of a cover of Paris dans sa splendeur. Paris, H. Charpentier [1861]. One of the 3 surviving lithographs of the 4-stone design for Ambroise Vollard's illustration of Un coup de dés. Posthumous print by Auguste Clot (Mellerio 186 with date 1900, no title or reference to Vollard). Only a few trial prints on white paper have survived. As early as December 14, 1896, Vollard wrote to Mallarmé: "I had expressed to Mr. Redon my great desire to publish something of yours with illustrations by him. Mr. Redon filled me with joy when he told me that you were not opposed"... (Nectoux p. 142). On July 5, 1897, Vollard wrote to the artist to request an illustration in black (he was thinking of his illustrators in color), while Mallarmé wanted a drawn background so as not to "duplicate the drawing of (his) text, which is black and white". Vollard insisted on 4 "important" plates, averaging 30 x 21, to ensure commercial success, given the price of 50 fr and a print run limited to 200 copies, compared to the simple text of the Cosmopolis magazine, which cost only 1 fr (Austin IX p. 241). Vollard," wrote Redon to the poet on April 20, 1898, "has shown me some superb papers; I think that, for unity, we could try printing the lithographs on white paper, i.e. on that of the text, although separately placed; I propose to draw blond and pale so as not to upset the effect of the characters, nor their new variety. I have the stones in the graining, which tells you that I'll soon be definitively at work" (Austin X p. 145). Provenance: Henri M. Petiet (stamp on verso), Piasa, 6/12/2012 n° 178.