Beschreibung:

COCTEAU, JEAN Romeo et Juliette . [Paris: Sans Pareil, 1926]. First edition, one of 420 copies, this copy with a large original ink drawing with inscription to the half-title and a 1944 autograph letter from Jo Mielziner tipped-in offering the drawing. Original printed wrappers and chemise with ties. 13 x 9 3/4 inches (33 x 25 cm); with 12 full page pochoir illustrations after Jean Hugo and others within the text. Some offsetting from tissue guards, tape stains where the letter is tipped-in at front, light thumbsoiling, wear to chemise spine with small losses. The Cocteau drawing here presents the two faces of Romeo and Juliette in profile and is inscribed in 1929 to "Flechtheim," likely the German art dealer Alfred Flechtheim, an early champion of Van Gogh and Picasso whose art collection was seized by the Nazis in 1933 and whose death shortly followed. C Estate of William W. Appleton