Large Folio. (460 x 388 mm), Volume I: (2) ff., 12 pages, (2) ff., + 9 coloured figures in text + 50 mounted colour plates tipped-in (numbered from 1 to 50) / Volume II: 50 mounted colour plates tipped-in (numbered 51-100), loose as published in a wallet in silk screen canvas and cases of the publisher, original pictorial cloth folders with ties, lithographs in colour by Henri Rivière. The plates are accompanied by an explanatory text and organised by geographical origin: Mesopotamia, Syria, Egypt, Persia, Asia Minor, Damascus, Rhodes, Spain. The preface is by Gaston Migeon, the creator of the section of the Arts of Islam at the Louvre, Émile Lévy, Librairie centrale des Beaux-Arts, Paris, first edition, 1913.

Synopsis

Limited edition of 200 copies of which this copy is numbered 193. A monumental achievement by Rivière on the Islamic ceramics .
Henri Benjamin Jean-Pierre Rivière (1864-1951) was a French artist and designer best known for his creation of a form of shadow play at the Chat Noir cabaret, and for his postimpressionist illustrations of Breton landscapes and the Eiffel Tower.
Rivière is remembered as one of the foremost proponents of Japonisme, the French fascination with all things Japanese at the close of the 19th century. Inspired by the possibilities of lithography to render rich, atmospheric images in full colour, he enlisted Eugène Verneau in 1897 to assist him in producing the most ambitious project in colour printmaking Europe had seen to date. Through this collaboration with Verneau, Rivière was able to translate his panoramic landscapes of Paris and Brittany into over sixty monumental colour lithographs involving the execution and registration of dozens of reliefs (often larger than 30 x 40 inches.).
Bibliographic reference: Creswell 736 for 1914 edition.