☙ Madame Chrysanthème

1936 - Pierre Loti

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☙ Madame Chrysanthème

✑ Pierre Loti

MADAME CHRYSANTHÈME

First published in 1887, Madame Chrysanthème is one of Pierre Loti's most celebrated novels. A naval officer and member of the Académie française, Loti drew on his stay in Nagasaki in July 1885 to recount the temporary marriage of a young French officer with an eighteen-year-old Japanese woman, Okané-San, nicknamed Madame Chrysanthème. A founding work of French literary Japonisme, the novel was an immediate and lasting success, notably inspiring Giacomo Puccini in the creation of his opera Madame Butterfly. The edition presented here is the refined and sought-after one published by Calmann-Lévy in 1936, enhanced with 25 color compositions by Sylvain Sauvage (1888–1948), hand-colored using stencils by the Beaufumé and Jacomet workshops. Printed in a limited run of 1,120 numbered copies on pure laid Lafuma paper, this edition represents a high point in the art of the illustrated book of the interwar period, combining the subtlety of Loti's prose with the Japanese-inspired grace of Sauvage's draughtsmanship.

Why add it to your collection?

A Prestigious Illustrated Edition with Stencil Colorings by Sylvain Sauvage

A Limited Print Run on Pure Laid Paper, Guaranteeing Documented Rarity

The Founding Work of French Literary Japonisme

An Art Deco Object of Incomparable Graphic Elegance

The Novel that Inspired Puccini to Compose Madame Butterfly

Description

Madame Chrysanthème takes the form of a fictional diary in which the narrator — a transparent alter ego of Loti — recounts his arrival in Nagasaki, the negotiation of his contractual marriage, and daily life shared with his young Japanese wife. The novel is less a love story than a succession of visual and sensory impressions: the hillside city, the paper houses, the miniature gardens, the shimmering kimonos and tea ceremonies are described with the precision of a watercolorist.

Loti makes no attempt to idealize his heroine: Chrysanthème remains a distant, almost elusive figure whose inner life he never truly penetrates. It is precisely this ambiguity — between fascination and detachment, between desire and incomprehension — that gives the text its unsettling modernity. The famous closing scene, in which the young woman taps her silver coins to make sure they are genuine, encapsulates in a single image the melancholic irony of the entire work.

Sylvain Sauvage's Illustration: Stencil Art at Its Finest

Sylvain Sauvage, a painter and engraver trained at the École des Arts Décoratifs, was one of the masters of Art Deco book illustration. For this edition, he designed 25 Japanese-inspired compositions: 12 chapter headbands and tailpieces integrated into the text, along with 12 full-page plates. Each image is hand-colored using the pochoir (stencil) technique, a craft requiring the cutting of layered stencils and the careful application of pigments by hand. The Beaufumé and...

Sylvain Sauvage's Illustration: Stencil Art at Its Finest

The Print Run and Paper

The edition was printed in a numbered run of 1,120 copies, including 1,000 on pure laid Lafuma paper and 120 deluxe copies. The acid-free pure laid paper offers a smooth, uniform surface that brilliantly showcases the refinement of the stencil work. Nearly ninety years after printing, the colors retain their freshness and intensity — a testament to the quality of the materials used and the care taken in production.

A Complete Bibliophile Object

The copy is typically presented in a half-leather binding with raised bands, gilt top edge, and original illustrated wrappers preserved. The whole forms a coherent bibliophile object in which the binding rivals the content in elegance, making it a natural addition to any collection devoted to twentieth-century French illustrated books or travel literature.

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