KIEFFER, René, bookbinder. LOUŸS, Pierre. CALBET, Antoine. ~ Aphrodite Moeurs Antique.
One of 500 copies on velin d’Arches. 75 colour collotype illustrations by Calbet. Folio, in a special signed binding by Rene Kieffer (binder’s label on flyleaf), full red leather with gilt blocking, onlays on both sides depicting Aphrodite looking into a mirror in purple, teal, citron, tan, orange and flesh pink morocco, stamped in gilt and with the monogram of the artist Antoine Calbet who designed the image, turn-ins with a single gilt fillet and gilt floral tooling in the corners, decorated red and silver endpapers, original wrappers bound in. Housed in the original marbled paper covered slipcase. Front joint a little rubbed, otherwise very good.
René Kieffer (1876-1963) was a Parisian bookbinder, publisher and bookseller who trained with Marius Michel and began as a finisher at the Chambolle-Duru bindery. In 1903 he set up his own atelier at 99 boulevard St-Germain. After a couple of moves he ended up in rue Seguier in 1910. In the 1920s he began to publish books himself, after beginning to publish before the war with the dealer Auguste Blaizot, producing titles in deluxe as here with the extraordinary silk printing, or semi-deluxe editions, using his own binding techniques so the collector could receive a specially bound copy of a René Kieffer edition, generally a deluxe publisher’s binding was created by blocking a design in blind onto calf but collectors could also order personalised bindings which involved gilt blocking onto morocco rather than calf.