RUBAIYAT OF OMAR KHAYYAM
by BALFOUR, RONALD, Illustrator
- Used
- Condition
- See description
- Seller
-
McMinnville, Oregon, United States
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
London: Constable and Company Limited, 1920. No. 48 OF 50 COPIES SIGNED BY THE ILLUSTRATOR. 315 x 225 mm. (12 1/4 x 9"). [80] leaves. Translated by Edward FitzGerald.
Original gold and black linen backed with black buckram, upper cover and smooth spine with bold gilt lettering. With 17 black & white plates, 14 black & white plates with color highlights, six color plates, and an extra hand-watercolored plate, all tipped onto Japanese vellum, and 39 illustrations of naughty nymphs in the text, all by Ronald Balfour. Printed on Japanese vellum. ◆Extremities rather worn, a few scratches on boards, leaves faintly browned at edges, but still a very good copy of this special limited edition.
The exotic and erotic illustrations in this printing of FitzGerald's 1859 version of the Rubaiyat combine the black & white Decadent style of Beardsley with the richly colored Art Deco fashion illustrations of Georges Barbier, bringing the poem's stately quatrains into the Jazz Age. This edition launched the career of Ronald Egerton Balfour (1896-1941), a self-taught artist who worked as a costume designer and illustrator during the interwar period. The elaborate garments in the Rubaiyat plates speak to his talent in both categories. Born into a wealthy and influential family, he seems to have engaged in artistic pursuits more for pleasure than for money. He ran with the "Bright Young Things" in the 1920s, designing outrageous costumes for their fancy dress parties, and married a beautiful debutante for whom he designed clothes. During the 1930s, he did work for Fox Films as an art director and costume designer, travelling to Hollywood in 1934 to work on Anna May Wong's costumes for "Java Head." The imaginative illustrations here appeared in several later editions, but ours is the deluxe first printing..
Original gold and black linen backed with black buckram, upper cover and smooth spine with bold gilt lettering. With 17 black & white plates, 14 black & white plates with color highlights, six color plates, and an extra hand-watercolored plate, all tipped onto Japanese vellum, and 39 illustrations of naughty nymphs in the text, all by Ronald Balfour. Printed on Japanese vellum. ◆Extremities rather worn, a few scratches on boards, leaves faintly browned at edges, but still a very good copy of this special limited edition.
The exotic and erotic illustrations in this printing of FitzGerald's 1859 version of the Rubaiyat combine the black & white Decadent style of Beardsley with the richly colored Art Deco fashion illustrations of Georges Barbier, bringing the poem's stately quatrains into the Jazz Age. This edition launched the career of Ronald Egerton Balfour (1896-1941), a self-taught artist who worked as a costume designer and illustrator during the interwar period. The elaborate garments in the Rubaiyat plates speak to his talent in both categories. Born into a wealthy and influential family, he seems to have engaged in artistic pursuits more for pleasure than for money. He ran with the "Bright Young Things" in the 1920s, designing outrageous costumes for their fancy dress parties, and married a beautiful debutante for whom he designed clothes. During the 1930s, he did work for Fox Films as an art director and costume designer, travelling to Hollywood in 1934 to work on Anna May Wong's costumes for "Java Head." The imaginative illustrations here appeared in several later editions, but ours is the deluxe first printing..
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Details
- Bookseller
- Phillip J. Pirages Fine Books and Medieval Manuscripts (US)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- ST17640-126
- Title
- RUBAIYAT OF OMAR KHAYYAM
- Author
- BALFOUR, RONALD, Illustrator
- Book Condition
- Used
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Edition
- No. 48 OF 50 COPIES SIGNED BY THE ILLUSTRATOR
- Publisher
- Constable and Company Limited
- Place of Publication
- London
- Date Published
- 1920
Terms of Sale
Phillip J. Pirages Fine Books and Medieval Manuscripts
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About the Seller
Phillip J. Pirages Fine Books and Medieval Manuscripts
Biblio member since 2006
McMinnville, Oregon
About Phillip J. Pirages Fine Books and Medieval Manuscripts
Phillip J. Pirages Fine Books an Manuscripts was established in 1978 on a ping pong table in a basement in Kalamazoo, Michigan. From the beginning, its founder was willing to sell a range of material, but over the years, the business has gravitated toward historical artifacts that are physically attractive in some way--illuminated material, fine bindings, books printed on vellum, fore-edge paintings, beautiful typography and paper, impressive illustration. Today, the company still sells a wide range of things, from (scruffy) ninth century leaves to biblical material from all periods to Wing and STC imprints to modern private press books to artists' bindings. While we are forgiving about condition when something is of considerable rarity, we always try to obtain the most attractive copies possible of whatever we offer for sale.
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- Leaves
- Very generally, "leaves" refers to the pages of a book, as in the common phrase, "loose-leaf pages." A leaf is a single sheet...
- Edges
- The collective of the top, fore and bottom edges of the text block of the book, being that part of the edges of the pages of a...
- Buckram
- A plain weave fabric normally made from cotton or linen which is stiffened with starch or other chemicals to cover the book...
- Vellum
- Vellum is a sheet of specialty prepared skin of lamb, calf, or goat kid used for binding a book or for printing and writing. ...
- Gilt
- The decorative application of gold or gold coloring to a portion of a book on the spine, edges of the text block, or an inlay in...
- A.N.
- The book is pristine and free of any defects, in the same condition as ...
- Spine
- The outer portion of a book which covers the actual binding. The spine usually faces outward when a book is placed on a shelf....
- Plate
- Full page illustration or photograph. Plates are printed separately from the text of the book, and bound in at production. I.e.,...