POPELIN (Claudius). A book of sonnets. Paris, G. Charpentier & Cie, 1888. In-4, bradel overlaid vellum, figure in gilt oval in centre, original watercolour portrait signed top left of upper cover, smooth spine, cover (Pierson). Rare first edition of this luxurious collection of sonnets composed and decorated by the painter, enameller and poet Claudius Popelin (1825-1892). Each page is decorated with floral woodcuts based on his drawings by Alfred Prunaire. One of the few copies printed on japon. A few copies were also printed on large strong vellum paper, according to Vicaire. A precious copy of Edmond de Goncourt (1897, no. 23), with his bookplate and cipher on the boards, enriched by an autograph verse piece signed by the author, À Edmond de Goncourt, bound at the head of the volume, and decorated with an original watercolour signed by his son Gustave Popelin (1859-1937), executed on the first cover of the binding. The first endpaper bears this autograph note signed by Edmond de Goncourt in pink ink: Beau livre dont le texte et les illustrations sont de Popelin - et qui n'a pas été mis en le commerce. Copy on Japanese paper brought back by Prince Louis from his trip to the Far East and preceded by a friendly verse piece by Popelin; with this postscript initialled by the same: Portrait in watercolour on the cover of his son after the portrait in oil, exhibited at the Champ de Mars in 1889. Edmond de Goncourt often mentioned Popelin in his Diary, ironising in particular about his affair with Princess Mathilde Bonaparte. He commissioned a portrait on enamel of his late brother, reproduced on the frontispiece of Lettres de Jules de Goncourt (1885). Vicaire, VI, 783.