Douze Sonnets lascifs pour accompagner la suite d'aquarelles intitulée Les Délassements d’Eros

Paris: Erotopolis [Maurice Duflou] (A l'Enseigne du Faune), 1925. First Limited Edition. Portfolio. Paper pastedown on boards and cloth spine. Near Fine. Gerda Wegener. Twelve playful naughty richly colored pochoir plates designed by Wegener depicting a hedonistic frivolity to the lesbian lovers. Portfolio is 25.5 by 19.5 cm. 37 paginated pages -- blank flip side of leaves counted in pagination, but plates are not. In the illustrations creates a tapestry that fuses the opulent clothing with the female bodies, the explicitness sometimes concealed while being in plain sight. In each there is a tiny mask in a lower corner, this being a sort of signature (truncated) by Wegener for these prints. This delectable sexual bon bon is fairly scarce, with only three institutional holdings outside of France recorded on OCLC First Search, all these copies in the US. (And there are three recorded copies in France.) The portfolio ribbon ties have perished. There is a light film of soiling on the cover as well, and the inside of the spine has chipping and tears -- evident only when one opens the portfolio. But the leaves within were meant to be loose, and the leaves, both the text and plate leaves, are generally clean, and the plates are near pristine. (Inventory #: 20361)