LÉVY, Lucette H., bookbinder. NODIER, Charles. ~ Écrin d’un Conteur, Choix de Contes.
2 aquatints after drawing by A. Ferdinandus, enraved by F. Massé. 369 pp. 11.5 x 8 cms. 12mo, bound by Lucette Lévy in full brown morocco, elaborately tooled in gilt on both sides and spine with a lattice pattern with in a border on each side and spine, the cetnre of each lozenge with a gilt flower tool, spine lettered in gilt, doublures with a matrix of flower tools with in two gilt fillet borders, watersilk free endpapers, original wrappers bound in. With the original chemise. A very handsome book in excellent condition.
In the 1920s many women were drawn to the medium of bookbinding, perhaps influenced by the new modernist designs forged by Pierre Legrain. The women included the widows of bookbinders killed in the war and a hwole new enterprising generation of young women who were searching for a fashionable vocation in teh arts. As the Ecole Estienne was reserved ofr men, may women enrolled at the city’s Ecole et Les Ateliers d’Art Decoratif, which had been founded in 1894. It is very probable that Lucette Lévy was among them. Binding instruction was offered first by Mme Rene Sergent and later by Lapersonne, Choffe and Genevieve de Leotard. On completion of the 4 year course, graduates sought employment in the city’s main binding workshops or set out to establish themselves independently.
Although we cannot find any details about her, apart from occasional bindings which have appeared in the rooms, viz. Christie’s 2009, and a couple of bindings in booksellers’ catalogues, Lucette Lévy was clearly extremely talented with great technical ability, like Adler she inclined to familiarising herself with the text and illustrations in a book to create an accord with it in her binding. She was varied and adaptive in her styles and was inventive with fonts for lettering and ways of binding throughout the 1920s and 1930s.