[BAKST] Arsène ALEXANDRE and Jean COCTEAU L’Art Decoratif de Léon Bakst / Critical essay by Arsène Alexandre; ballet notes by Jean Cocteau. Paris: Maurice de Brunoff, 1913

. – [38], 50 pp.; 1 portrait, 77 plates of illustrations; 40×27 cm. Artistic design: woodcuts headpieces and tailpieces, 77 illustrations (50 in colour) by Léon Bakst. In a publisher’s composite binding, spine and corners in parchment, gold embossing on the front cover (Bakst’s facsimile signature) and spine. Top edge gilt. Hand-laid paper. In good condition. Rubbing and some soiling to the binding. A luxurious bibliophile edition, printed in a limited run. Leon Bakst (real name—Leyb-Khaim Izrailevich, or Lev Samoilovich Rosenberg; 1866–1924) was a legendary Russian artist, stage designer, book illustrator, master of easel painting and theatrical graphics, and one of the key figures of the "Mir Iskusstva" movement and Sergei Diaghilev’s theatrical-artistic projects. The book was published at the peak of Bakst’s European fame. It compiles 77 of his sketches for Diaghilev’s ballets staged in Paris from 1908 to 1912, including productions such as Le Dieu Bleu, Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe, Cléopâtre, Shéhérazade, Narcisse, Le Martyre de Saint Sébastien, Daphnis et Chloé, and Salomé. The essay on Bakst’s decorative art was written by Arsène Alexandre (1859–1937), one of France’s foremost art and theater critics. Commentary on the ballets was provided by the young Jean Cocteau (1889–1963), one of the greatest French writers, artists, and critics of the modernist era. The book became a major cultural event in Europe and went through several editions. In the same year, it was also published in English in London.