signed first edition
1954 · New York
by SHAHN, Ben
New York: Spiral Press for Pantheon, 1954. New York: Spiral Press for Pantheon, [1954].
First edition. One of 50 copies printed on Umbria handmade paper, signed by Shahn and with an original drawing by him. This copy being number five. Tall octavo (10 3/4 x 6 3/4 inches; 275 x 170 mm). [44] pages including colophon and numerous Shahn illustrations plus the frontispiece of an original Shahn watercolor of the letter 'Zadhe', signed by him below.
Publisher's natural linen cloth with black morocco gilt spine label (English) and cover label (Hebrew). In publisher's cardboard slipcase. Slipcase with a small piece missing from bottom. Overall a fine copy.
"The Alphabet of Creation is one of the legends from the Sefer Har-Zohar, or Book of Splendor, an ancient Gnostic work written in Aramaic by a thirteenth century Spanish scholar named Moses de Leon who presented the work, not as his own, but as mystic knowledge revealed many centuries earlier to the Rabbi Simeon ben Yohai" (colophon).
HBS 66047.
$1,850. (Inventory #: 66047)
First edition. One of 50 copies printed on Umbria handmade paper, signed by Shahn and with an original drawing by him. This copy being number five. Tall octavo (10 3/4 x 6 3/4 inches; 275 x 170 mm). [44] pages including colophon and numerous Shahn illustrations plus the frontispiece of an original Shahn watercolor of the letter 'Zadhe', signed by him below.
Publisher's natural linen cloth with black morocco gilt spine label (English) and cover label (Hebrew). In publisher's cardboard slipcase. Slipcase with a small piece missing from bottom. Overall a fine copy.
"The Alphabet of Creation is one of the legends from the Sefer Har-Zohar, or Book of Splendor, an ancient Gnostic work written in Aramaic by a thirteenth century Spanish scholar named Moses de Leon who presented the work, not as his own, but as mystic knowledge revealed many centuries earlier to the Rabbi Simeon ben Yohai" (colophon).
HBS 66047.
$1,850. (Inventory #: 66047)