[Fine Binding | Marguerite Duprez Lahey] Aspects du Vieux Paris

Desbois, Pierre (illustrator), Descaves, Lucien (preface), Hénard, Robert. Aspects du Vieux Paris. Paris: chez l'Artist, [1923]. Limited to 20 copies (from a total edition of 330) on Imperial Japan paper. Illustrated with 50 original etchings by Pierre Desbois, in three states: 1) a suite of the first state of the etchings, 2) a suite of the final state before letter and signature, and 3) a suite within the text. [ii], 110, [4] pages and plates.

Bound in tan quarter morocco over beveled oak boards by Marguerite Duprez Lahey (stamp-signed on front turn-in "Duprez Lahey | Meligavit") with the morocco elaborately and embossed in blind featuring both vignettes and crests, in the style of the 15th/16th century. Braided leather straps and catches (lower catch replaced). Spine with twelve raised bands, title stamped in blind to second compartment, with remaining compartments similarly embossed in blind. Cream-colored endpapers, all edges trimmed. Matching brown morocco chemise with wood veneer and cutouts for leather braids. Measures approx. 10.25" x 13".

Gift inscription dated 1926 from Louis Roberts Taylor and his wife, Else Suetterle Taylor, to their son John on his third(!) birthday. (Taylor was a prominent Milwaukee businessman.) Lower catch sympathetically replaced in oak. Minor offsetting to endpapers and minor offsetting from etchings, some scattered foxing and staining. 

Marguerite Duprez Lahey studied bookbinding under Alfred Schleuning in New York (Adams Bindery) and later moved to Paris and "...studied tooling with Marius Michel, Jules Domont, Emile Mercier, and Antoine Joly; learned edge gilding from Chapiers and Koch; and studied design with Coulomb and Henri Noulhac" (Haqqi). She began rebinding books for J. Pierpont Morgan in 1908 and continued to work for the Morgan Library until her death in 1958. Morgan's personal librarian, and later the inaugural director of the Pierpont Morgan Library, Belle da Costa Greene, described Lahey's work as "the very best bookbinding in America."

Includes: catalogue of The Fine Bindings of Marguerite Duprez Lahey from the Morgan Library exhibition of 1951/1952. While this volume was not included within the exhibition, several volumes bear similar descriptions to this one.