(Paris): Les Editions G. Cres & Cie, (1928). Deluxe first edition. 4to. Illustrated with lithographed frontispiece on Japan paper ("Visage de Marie-Therese"), signed by Picasso bottom right, and numbered 143/200 (from a total of 300), with tissue guard, as well as two color plates and numerous black and white plates and in-text illustrations. Publisher's stiff printed cream wrappers, losses along spine, soiling to wrappers; scattered splitting in gutters; text and plates lightly toned; library label tipped-in at bottom of second tissue guard at front; pencil notations on title-page recto and verso; frontispiece very lightly foxed; in quarter brown cloth chemise. Bloch 95; Cramer 16; Mourlot XXIII

First edition of Andre Level's monograph on the art of Pablo Picasso, one of the earliest books on the artist's work and life. With a handsome example of Picasso's signed lithograph profile portrait of his mistress, Marie-Therese, one of his first portraits of his muse.

"Andre Level was an enthusiastic art collector, who met Picasso in 1908...In 1928, Level published the present volume as part of the 'Cahiers d'aujourd'hiu' series put out by Editions G. Cries et Cie. It was--after Maurice Raynal's book of 1921 and Waldemar George's of 1924 and 1926--one of the first monographs on Picasso. Level's book is all the more valuable because it gives not only an artistic evaluation of Picasso's oeuvre, but also copious biographical details concerning the artist's friendships, travels, and exhibitions, as well as the circumstances under which a great many works were created." (Cramer)