PICASSO (Pablo) - TOESCA (Maurice). Six fantastical tales. Paris : Flammarion, [1953]. - In-4, 330 x 255 : (2 blank ff.), 82 pp. (5 ff. last 4 blank), printed cover. Cramer, no. 66. First edition printed at 225 copies, illustrated with 6 original full-page burins by Pablo PICASSO (1881-1973). "As early as February 1943, Henri Flammarion had conceived the idea of publishing Toesca's "Six Contes" with illustrations by Picasso. We know that the publisher and the author visited Picasso on several occasions and that in September 1943 Maurice Toesca, who was working at the Préfecture de Police in Paris, obtained an extension of Picasso's foreign passport without the intervention of the German and Spanish authorities. Of the six tales in which fantasy mingles with reality to reveal the great truths about life, the power of time, art and mystery, Picasso may have been inspired by the first, which evokes the relationship between the object of art and the object of nature (a perfectly painted butterfly flies off the canvas). This theme, familiar to Picasso, is in fact the guiding idea behind Picasso's illustrations for this book. On 30 April 1944, Picasso made 6 burins, numbered on the plate in the first state in Roman numerals. These engravings are the only ones from 1944, with the exception of one drypoint" (Cramer). The edition is also illustrated with 6 woodcut initials by Pierre Bouchet, done "in the manner of those Picasso had done in the meantime (1949) for Carmen" (Ibid). A precious copy, one of those specially printed for Pierre Jean Mathan, nominative, printed on Montval vellum. It has been enriched with the following items: - Suite des 6 lettrines sur papier vergé d'Auvergne. - 5 drafts of the title page, 4 handwritten and one printed, all mentioning "douze burins et lettrines de Picasso" and dated 1944. - Preparatory drawings and sketches for the lettering on two in-4 leaves. - 6 abandoned lettering projects, painted in gouache on 6 different sheets, and an attempt in the same taste for the sign on page 33. Most of these unique elements reveal Bouchet's creative process, adding a documentary and intimate dimension to the work. Spine of slipcase covered with brown adhesive, soiling to slipcase. Some foxing, including on the plates.