Paris, Librairie Centrale des Beaux-Arts, [1905]. Two parts in two (31.6 x 24.0 cm). 900 pp. [384; xx, 496]; 12 full colour plates [1-8; 9-12]; numerous text illustrations, many pictorial headpieces and woodcut capitals. Uniform grey, green-printed cloth. Boards with bevelled edges. Greyish-blue endpapers. Top edge red.

A lavishly produced work, with great attention to style-ornaments and typographical details. Profusely illustrated. Edited by the Swiss Art Nouveau artist Eugène Grasset (1841-1917). The work is not dated, but known to be published in 1905. A French antiquarian errs in stating that both parts have 20 Roman-numbered preliminary pages - this is true only for one volume, and for some reason this introduction is bound in the second volume of this set. Boards a bit soiled and very weakly stained; very short tear in fore edge of first volume's front free endpaper and first blank; otherwise, however, an excellent, clean and unmarked set. Rare in this fine condition. Evers, Ornamentale Vorlagenwerke, 38. Not in Schneider-Henn, Ornament und Dekoration.