Lysistrata, by Aristophanes. A New Version by Gilbert Seldes by Aristophanes - 1934

NY: Limited Editions Club, 1934. Picasso, Pablo. Quarto. 117pp. One of 1,500 copies on French Rives and signed by Picasso. Illustrated with six original etchings in black, one of which is signed in the plate and dated in reverse, and thirty lithographs printed in sanguine after drawings. This is the only American publication with original Picasso etchings, which are "among his most important in the Classical style," according to The Artist and the Book. However experimental and avant-garde he may have been throughout his life, the Lysistrata marks a clear retrogression to the artist's earlier classicist mode, an appropriate follow-up to his acclaimed Les Métamorphoses and fitting for the classical nature of this book. The Limited Editions Club printed the volume at their own printing shop in Westport, Connecticut. The book was designed by the Club's publisher, George Macy, who had eagerly anticipated the book's production and praised Picasso's hand as "sure and confident," noting that the beauty of the etchings lay in their simplicity. A fine, bright copy in boards covered with patterned paper in three colors from drawings by Picasso. Wrapped in the original glassine, which is still crisp overall, save for slight edgewear. Housed in a chemise of blue boards and patterned paper, which is sunned to the spine, and the original slipcase, which has small split at the bottom of the opening and a longer repaired split at the top. (The Artist and The Book 226; Cramer 24; LEC 57).