File:Sous la lampe (BM 1912,1001.1.1).jpg

Height: 270 millimetres

Height: 348 millimetres

Width: 370 millimetres (max.)

Width: 530 millimetres (sheet)

Part of a complete copy of the book 'Le Corbeau' (560mm x 400mm approx.), being the translation by Stéphane Mallarmé of Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Raven' (Paris: Richard Lesclide, 1875), printed by Alcan Lévy, Paris in a bilingual edition, illustrated with four transfer lithographs on laid paper loosely inserted between the pages, in board binding with additional lithograph of a raven's head on the front cover, also by the artist, and advertisements for the 'Librairie de l'Eau-forte' on the back. This is number 64/240 of the edition, signed by both the artist and Mallarmé on the colophon. Sidney Colvin's name is inscribed in ink on the cover. The lithograph of the raven's head on the cover is unregistered: see Guérin 85, 'Le Corbeau: tête de profil', Moreau-Nélaton 95 and IFF 73/4. The volume was sold by Colvin to Colnaghi along with the extra set of proofs on chine on 22 July 1912 (information from the Colnaghi archive). The complete set was then purchased by Dodgson from Colnaghi in the same year, when he presented it to the BM. He retained the extra set of prints on chine, and these later came to the BM with his bequest (see 1949,0411.3330 to 3333). This copy lacks the ex-libris, described by all the above. The British Library possesses another copy of the book (number 53), also printed on laid paper, which does contain the ex-libris. For an exhaustive account of this publication with a census of surviving copies, see Juliet Bareau and B.Mitchell in 'Print Quarterly', VI 1989, pp.258-308, and M.Parkenham, ibid, VII 1990, p.434. This is Manet's most important essay in book-illustration, and was published in 1875 by Richard Lesclide in Paris in a limited edition of 240 copies, signed by the authors. It contained the English text of Edgar Allan Poe's poem, with a facing French translation by Stephane Mallarmé. In the four openings so formed were inserted four full-page lithographs by Manet, who also provided a head of a raven to be printed on the front cover, and a loose print of a raven in flight to be used as an ex-libris. A poster announcing the publication informs us that the lithographs were printed on laid or China paper and that the book cost 25 francs; for an extra 10 francs one could acquire a second set of the illustrations. Manet and Mallarmé first met in 1873, when Mallarmé was still an obscure poet, and became very close friends. When two paintings of Manet were rejected for the Salon of 1874 Mallarmé came to his defence in an article published in 'La Renaissance artistique et litteraire'. The friendship resulted in Manet's illustrating both 'Le Corbeau', published in May 1875, and 'L'Après-Midi d'un faune', published in 1876; Manet also painted a portrait of Mallarmé (now in the Louvre) in 1876. Mallarmé was continuously concerned to get artists to illustrate his works (cf. L.J.Austin, 'Mallarmé and the Visual Arts' in 'French Nineteenth-Century Painting and Literature', ed. U. Finke, Manchester, 1972, pp.239-41), and in 1881 Mallarmé wrote to solicit Manet for further illustrations for his translations of Poe. In the context of nineteenth-century book illustration Manet's designs are revolutionary; their size is exceptional and this seems to be the first use of brush lithography. They did not have much influence but enjoyed a considerable success. It even reached England. Rossetti wrote to Jane Morris in 1881: 'Bye the bye, my own memento of O'S [O' Shaughnessy] is a huge folio of lithographed sketches from the Raven, by a French idiot named Manet, who certainly must be the greatest and most conceited ass who ever lived. A copy should be bought for every hypochondriacal ward in lunatic asylums. To view it without a guffaw is impossible.'