The Collected Library: Summer Reading

2 volumes, 4to (254 x 197 mm). 2 drypoint etchings, lithographs, and numerous illustrations. Contemporary half morocco gilt top edges gilt, others uncut; original wrappers bound in at end of each volume (rubbing to extremities). Provenance: Kate Lancaster Brewster (1874-1947), socialite and wealthy patron to the Art Institute of Chicago (bookplate); John Talbot Gernon (1904-1994), leather book label.

FIRST TRADE EDITION. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec 1864-1901 was the first reference work printed on the work of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and was written by his lifelong friend Maurice Joyant. Joyant, who would succeed Theo van Gogh as buyer and director of Boussod, Valadon et Cie following van Gogh's death in 1891, staged the first retrospective of Toulouse-Lautrec's work at the gallery two years later. Following his friend's death in 1901 Joyant was instrumental in convincing the Comtesse Adèle de Toulouse-Lautrec to donate her collection of her son's work to the Musée Toulouse-Lautrec at Albi, which today owns the most extensive collection of Toulouse-Lautrec's works in the world.