About the cover:

Full-grain binding Green maroquin leather, entirely Art Deco in design, with five double bands running diagonally across the cover and spine in a black leather lining, reminiscent of uniform clothing. A potpourri of further leather overlays in white, red and black, additionally embossed in black, red, blue and silver, fills half of the front cover. Large registry number ‘51’ at the top right of the front cover and at the bottom left of the back cover, inscription on the front cover: ‘HONNEUR ET PATRIE 51 CHASSEURS’. Diagonally arranged, hand-gilt spine title in constructed lettering, silver head edge, black, hand-stitched capital, wide inner edges with black and silver leather overlays, triple endpapers, green reps cloth with coloured paper.

Brown half-leather chemise with black leather flag, slipcase covered with coloured paper.

About the content:

Georges Courteline: Les Gaités de l'Escadron

With 16 colour etchings after watercolours by Joseph Hémard

Ex. No. 251 of 440 on Vélin de Rives

Javal et Boudeaux Éditeurs, Paris 1926 First performed in 1859, this French comedy of satires about barracks life was initially banned in the context of the Dreyfus Affair. In the climate prevailing in France at the time, the public initially did not appreciate this irreverent indictment of the French army.

About the artist: Paul Bonet worked as an electrician's assistant before joining his mother's millinery business and becoming a modeller of wooden mannequins. He only discovered bookbinding, which became his profession in 1924, in 1920, concentrating exclusively on cover designs and having the work carried out by excellent craftsmen. ‘The decor of a cover must be a decorative synthesis of the book, the cover should express the soul of the book.’

Paul Bonet saw himself as an artist whose cover designs were appreciated by bibliophiles on the one hand and became known to the wider public through his designs for publishers' covers on the other. In 1950 he was made a ‘Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur’.