Paris, Librairie Centrale des Beaux-Arts, [1904-1908]. Four parts in four. Folio (37.3 x 29.1 cm). Title pages in red and black. 386 [of 394] plates. Uniform green, grained cloth over marbled boards. Brown endpapers.

A great rarity - almost never found complete, of an illustrated encyclopaedia compiled, written, and illustrated by the French designer and illustrator Maurice Pillard Verneuil (1869-1942), one of the foremost French Art Nouveau artists. It includes contributions by other famous Art Nouveau artists, such as Jules Auguste Habert-Dys, Mathurin Méheut, and Alphonse Mucha. Other plates are photographs of real plants. Generally, a fine phototype plate, a black and white illustration, and a full colour illustration are present for each plant. The work was apparently issued loose-leaved, but also bound - at least, the bindings are contemporary if not original. The title to the second part seems to be a general title, as it does not mention the contents. Bindings weak, in one volume broken. Lacks eight plates, of which six coloured; a few plates detached, one plate smaller, perhaps from another copy. Bindings rather shaky, partly detached; in the margins, especially the lower margins, signs of use, such as thumbing and staining, a few plates more affected, a few tears; otherwise very good, unmarked. Very few auction records to be found and often quoting less plates than we have, there seems to be a dispute over the correct number of plates of a complete copy. Bénézit 8, p. 534; Nissen BBI, 2055; Schneider-Henn, Ornament und Dekoration, 346.