Le Chef-d'oeuvre inconnu by Picasso, Pablo, ill. Honoré de Balzac - 1931

Paris: Ambroise Vollard, 1931. First edition. No. 217 of 240 copies on Rives paper, of a total edition of 305. 13 original etchings by Pablo Picasso and 67 wood engravings after drawings by the artist, engraved by George Aubert. Bound in gray calf by Renée Haas and collaborators Renaud Vernier and Claude Ribal. Front and back covers with a black and gray inlaid checkerboard pattern with alternating gold squares mounted, each cover with inlaid red line vertically zigzagging with white mirrored line throughout, lettered in gilt on the spine; all edges gilt; red suede doublures, gray suede endleaves; morocco-tipped slipcase with suede-lined chemise, spine mirroring volume spine text. Original wrappers bound in. An excellent copy.

The binding, dated 2008, is the work of three hands: the designer Renée Haas, and Renaud Vernier and Claude Ribal, executors of the binding. According to the Pierre Bergé catalogue description of the binding on Matisse's Jazz executed by the same trio in 1983, "Renée Haas reserved her talents only for a few lucky collectors, hence the rarity of her bindings on the market today."

In 1926, Ambroise Vollard commissioned illustrations from Picasso for The Unknown Masterpiece, a formidable Balzacian reflection on pictorial creation, in which his "text declares his aesthetic faith in artists and their search for inspiration, despite their struggles to reach their goals." (Johnson, Artists' Books in the Modern Era). And as Strachan notes, "who better than Picasso could understand and convey the restlessness of an artist battling with the inexpressible?" "The diversity, yet harmony of Picasso's genius is represented here by the inclusion of both abstract and classical styles in a single volume. The wood-engravings reproduce Cubist figures, still-lifes, and the sparkling 'constellation drawings' of 1926, while the etchings are classical in character, combining pure line with cross-hatching." (Garvey, The Artist and the Book) One of the most important livres d'artistes of the twentieth century; as Chapon notes, "un des ouvrages qui fait le plus honneur à Vollard reste Le Chef-d'oeuvre Inconnu."

Goeppert-Cramer, Picasso, no. 20; Hyza, et. al., Picasso et le livre d'artiste, pp. 56-57 ; Garvey, The Artist and the Book 1860-1960, no. 225; Garvey & Wick, The Arts of the French Book 1900-1965, no. 18; Johnson, Artists' Books in the Modern Era, no. 54; Mellby, Splendid Pages, p. 209; Coron, De Goya à Max Ernst, pp. 255-262; From Manet to Hockney, 92; Skira, Anthologie du Livre Illustré par les Peintures et Sculpteurs, 293; Strachan, The Artist and the Book in France, pp. 60-62, 339; Chapon, Le Peintre et le Livre, pp. 57, 74-78, 281. Carteret, Le trésor du bibliophile: livres illustrés modernes, 1875 à 1945, vol. 4, p. 51.