Stèles

Réf. 42592

Vendu

Pei-King - Imprimerie du Pei-T’ang - 1912

Format : grand in-8 étroit plié à la chinoise.
Number of volumes : 1 volume.
Binding : Paperback.
Collation : 102 pp.

Sheets of different sizes printed on one side only, joined and folded in a regular portfolio forming 106 pp. (4 cover and 102 inside), printed title piece glued on the first panel. Extremely robust Korean paper combining the qualities of Japan and traditional China. The format is an exactly proportionate scale model of the famous Nestorian stele of Si-ngan- fou (rectangular and high format). The text of each stele is framed by a black net, and an epigraph in Chinese characters accompanies the French title on the right.

There are two types of stele covers, one made of two wooden plates, the other made of two cardboard boxes covered with Chinese silk: this one has neither one nor the other.

A true non-commercial ORIGINAL EDITION printed in 81 numbered copies on Imperial paper of Korea (No. 26). E.A.S. from Victor Ségalen to Pierre Bons d'Anty "for his friendship which we would gladly seek as far as Lhasa" (Nov. 1912).

Copy bearing the usual 3 red seals of the original edition of 1912.

Segalen's originality is already evident in the presentation of the volume. Free to give his book the look he wanted, since he proudly paid for this first non-commercial edition, Segalen had the idea of drawing inspiration from Chinese bibliophilia to better emphasize the colour he intended to give to his work. This was not a simple concern of easy exoticism but a sign of research related to Mallarméan research. [...]

Eighty-one copies of the first edition of Stèles were printed, a number carefully planned since it corresponds to the sacred number (9 x 9) of the slabs on the third terrace at the Temple of Heaven in Beijing. Victor Segalen, Breton, naval doctor, poet and archaeologist who travelled through northern China for several years around 1904. He died young accidentally.

Provenance: Copy of Doctor Poupelain, this one having been given to him by Pierre Rémy Bons d'Anty, former Consul General at Le Chon-Gqing (who accompanied him to Le Thibet) in memory of their months of trials at an altitude of 4 and 5000 metres for several months.

Very good condition.