About the cover:
Half-fringed binding Plain, red marocco binding with wide prelims, grey-ground speckled paper cover, hand-gilt spine title surrounded by a semé of gold and black dots; gilt top edge, hand-stitched silk capital, grey-ground speckled paper endpapers, new hinged case.
About the cover:
Pierre Girard: La Reine de la Nuit
With a signed original drawing, 5 original lithographs and a suite by Pierre Estoppey
Ex. No. III of IV on Auvergne laid paper signed by the artist and author on the title page, suite and original drawing on China paper, 800 copies in total, Édition ‘13/12’, Lausanne 1955, copy for the director of the Neuchâtel Cantonal Bank, Théophile Bringolf
Pierre Girard (1892-1956), Swiss writer
About the artists: Marcellin Semet, born in 1894, completed an apprenticeship as a bookbinder with Chambolle-Duru during the First World War. His later partner, Georges Plumelle, born in 1902, was trained by the gilder Pagnier and later by Maylander. The two met after the war in Gruel's workshop.
In 1925, they took over the Pinardon company together. They quickly gained a reputation for combining first-class bookbinding skills with a very lively, modernist formal vocabulary. The best covers by Semet & Plumelle feature flowing lines or arabesques on a delicate two- or three-colour ground. Their style remained unchanged for years. Semet retired to the south of France in 1955, Plumelle continued to work alone until 1980.
