DUNOYER DE SEGONZAC (André) - VIRGILE. Les Géorgiques. Translated by Michel de Marolles. Paris: chez l'artiste, 1947. - 3 folio volumes, 449 x 335: (2 blank ff.), 201 pp, (3 ff. last 2 blank), printed cover; (2 blank ff.), 213 pp, (7 ff. last 2 blank), printed cover. Dark green morocco, covers richly decorated with a large distinct motif representing a kind of stylized tree, "whose broad decorative arabesques may give the impression of branches", mosaiced with calfskin in five shades graded from pink to dark red for volume 1, from brown to yellow for the second volume, and from orange to brown for the third, All the parts remaining in green morocco are decorated with gilt arabesques, smooth spine, edge-to-edge lining and light green box endpapers decorated with gilt and palladium irons and box mosaics in the same tones as the decoration on the boards, gilt edges on witnesses, cover and spine preserved, dark green morocco spine and flap edge folder, edged slipcase (Paul Bonet 1956). Lioré et Cailler, V, pp. 11-13. - Paul Bonet, Carnets 1924-1971, no. 1133, 1137 and 1150. A remarkable publication with an edition of 250 copies, all on Arches wove paper with a watermark of an ear of wheat and a bee. This is the most important of the works illustrated by André DUNOYER DE SEGONZAC (1884-1974), his masterpiece, and one of the great illustrated books of the 20th century. It includes 119 original etchings, 99 of them full-page, engraved between 1933 and 1946. Lioré and Cailler, in the Catalogue de l'œuvre gravé de Dunoyer de Segonzac, reported what the artist wrote about this book: "If I chose the theme of the Georgics, it was to try to accompany with etchings the scenes of rural life that have remained almost the same since Antiquity. Nowadays, with motorisation taking over the fields, it would no longer be possible to illustrate Virgil's text by observing peasant life as it has become. It was the poet Roger Allard who, around 1920, first had the idea of having me engrave etchings on Virgilian themes. Later, when the great publisher Ambroise Vollard asked me to illustrate a book with etchings, he suggested a text by Colette, but, remembering Roger Allard's advice, I steered him towards Virgil's Georgics, and he agreed... I engraved all the plates from the Georgics on the eternal theme of rural life: the ploughing of wheat and vines, sowing, harvesting, grape-picking, bees... For Canto III, devoted to livestock, I set up with my brass instruments in the pastures, among the herds of cows and oxen, engraving directly and striving to express their powerful and peaceful plastic beauty..." (Lioré and Cailler, 2005, p. 5). (Lioré et Cailler, Catalogue de l'œuvre gravé de Dunoyer de Segonzac, V, pp. 11-13). ONE OF THE FIRST 50 COPIES (NO. 25) ENRICHED WITH A SUITE OF 25 ETCHINGS ON RIVES VELLUM WATERMARKED WITH A BUNCH OF GRAPES AND AN OX HEAD, NUMBERED AND SIGNED AT THE HEAD BY THE ARTIST. It is preceded by a second, unsigned suite of 199 etchings on the same paper, bound separately and forming the third volume. Unquestionably one of the finest known copies of this edition, in sumptuous triplicate bindings made by Paul Bonet in 1956. The decorations, which are in the same style, are distinct and in different colours. In his notebooks, the bookbinder tells us that he began these bindings in November 1955 and finished them in January 1956 for the first volume, in April 1956 for the second and in July of the same year for the last. René Desmules was responsible for the binding and Robert Cochet for the gilding. Despite the sumptuousness of these bindings, Paul Bonet admitted that he found them "too rich". The first volume of this copy was the seventh binding he had done for this work, and despite everything he admitted that he had not yet managed to find the right binding for this work, which he also greatly appreciated. A perfectly preserved copy.