MIRBEAU (Octave). - Lot 186

MIRBEAU (Octave). Le Jardin des supplices. Paris: Eugène Fasquelle, 1928. - In-8, 197x137: portrait, (3 ff.), XXV, 260 pp. printed cover. Paperback, lined cover. Edition illustrated with a frontispiece portrait of the author. UNIQUE EDITION, with 26 remarkable original graphite drawings in the text and 10 original color pastel drawings out of the text, by Italian painter and illustrator Carlo Farneti (1892-1961) in June 1938. The drawings are unsigned, but the copy is justified by the artist on the verso of the title. The pastels are larger than the book and presented separately in sheets. This highly talented illustrator settled in Paris in 1926. Publishers sought him out to illustrate literary classics (Baudelaire, Edgar Allan Poe, Villon). He also responded to requests from bibliophiles to enrich their copies with original drawings, as was the case with this one. Other copies of this title with original works by Farneti are known. A very well preserved copy.