One should not miss this chance to learn and to collect! – Michèle Noret’s Catalogue 11

By Friedrich C. Heller

One year after her glorious Catalogue 10 Michèle Noret has published a new catalogue, again a wonderful collection of remarkable picture books and illustrated children’s books of the 20th century. Collectors and antiquarians who know the market, also know, that it is absolutely no matter to bring together such a richness and variety of book-art. Michèle Noret obviously has a good nose for this sort of books, but it is not only her resourcefulness, that helps her, it is her great knowledge and competence and her aesthetic intelligence which lead her to find these wonderful books and graphic art - and(!) to describe them in an adequate and always informative way. Looking through her catalogues always means to get in touch with important names, styles, developments of book-art, specialties of illustrative art. The series of her catalogues (happy the collectors who kept them!) is like an international compendium of modern artist’s books for children, indispensable for an intensive knowledge in this field, a real source book thanks to the many coloured illustrations. (A desideratum would be an index of titles and artists which comprehends all of the catalogues.)

The new catalogue with 199 items offers books and graphics of international importance. Especially remarkable are: again many Sowjet children’s books, among them very rare ones, but also books illustrated by Russian exile artists like Nathalie Parain and Fedor Rojankowsky. Fascinating is a wonderful collection of original gouaches by Nathalie Parain, made for Albums of the Père Castor Series – a unique chance to buy such rare original dessins! Another great and extremely fascinating offer is a special collection of some 10.000 (!) examples of so called „découpages“ (from 1850 until now), cutout-pictures, paper-dolls etc., mostly in uncut copies, many of them by famous illustrators and published by renowned publishing houses (like Tolmer), out of which the catalogue shows some examples (a full description of the collection is available on demand). It is clear that such unique items must have their adequate high price - but there are also many single books desirable for collectors, be they long-experienced or beginners, books which one can get for very moderate prices (among them some titles from WW I, children’s books which now are important as historical documents).

One should not miss this chance to learn and to collect!

Catalogue onze (Novembre 2013) – Librairie Michèle Noret.

>>> For more information visit the website www.michelenoret.com or send an email to Michèle Noret

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(Thank you very much to Friedrich C. Heller for giving ILAB permission to publish his article on this website.