ONE OF 100 RESERVED COPIES: THE DANCING OF CLOTILDE AND ALEXANDRE SAKHAROFF, WARMLY INSCRIBED BY VUILLERMOZ

VUILLERMOZ, Emile. Clotilde et Alexandre Sakharoff. (Lausanne: Imprimerie Centrale, 1933). Quarto, original art deco paper boards, black morocco spine label, top edge gilt. $1500.

Signed limited first edition, one of 100 copies printed and bound especially for friends of the author and inscribed by him, richly illustrated with one three-color choreographic notation by Alexandre Sakharoff and 25 tipped-in black-and-white photographic plates of the Sakharoffs. Warmly inscribed on the limitation page to Le Dr. François Debat: “l’ami des arts et des artistes, à qui l’auteur est heureux d’exprimer ses sentiments d’admirative sympathie. E. Vuillermoz. Jan 34.”

Alexandre and Clotilde Sakharoff were a highly influential dancing couple in the mid-20th century. In his autobiographical work Reflections on the Dance and Music, Alexandre says: “Clotilde Sakharoff and I did not dance with music or accompanied by music: we danced music. We made the music visual, expressing by means of movements what the composer has expressed by means of sounds… Nothing less than the states of the soul, the impressions, the sensations lived by the composer and transposed to the sound with the help of its art… Our aim was to transpose the sense expressed by the music of the sounds, to the music of the movements.” Vuillermoz was a French music critic. Cover illustration and tailpieces by Nathalie Gontcharova, a Russian cubist painter and ballet costume designer. Issued simultaneously with the first trade edition. Text in French.

Plates lovely. A beautiful, fine inscribed copy.