Lot n° 180
Estimation :
3000 - 4000
EUR
Result with fees
Result
: 6 066EUR
George GROSZ.
Ecce Homo. Berlin, Der Malik Verlag, 1923.
Small in-4: soft lavaliere cloth, square spine, first cover illustrated with author's name and title (publisher's binding).
Famous album of 100 caricature plates: one of the two known copies of the small quarto edition with all plates in black.
The original edition appeared in 1923 in folio format in several forms. The list of the five lettered editions A to D is given on a leaf at the top before the title.
This small quarto edition, in 1923, has the particularity of having an illustrated leather binding: its proven rarity (apart from the present copy, only one other is listed) may lead one to believe that it was an attempt to produce a book in a publisher's binding without a future edition.
It probably appeared in the same year as the original edition, i.e. in 1923. Indeed, the album is complete with all one hundred plates: 22 of them, considered pornographic, were confiscated following the trial for violation of moral order which condemned the Malik publishing house and the book in 1924.
Founded in 1917 by Wieland Herzfelde, the Malik publishing house was linked to the Dada movement from the start. They published the magazines Die Pleite (1919-1920) and Der Gegner (1919-1924), then opened the famous Galerie Grosz in December 1923 near Potsdamer Platz. The Malik publishing house was a contentious enterprise and was sued and censored several times. All the titles of the Malik publishing house were seized by the Nazis and burned during the autodafé of May 10, 1933.
Extremely rare decorated binding by the publisher in soft leatherette: it is illustrated on the first cover with the famous "Borgne avec cigare" (one-eyed man with a cigar), like the hardcovers of the folio edition.
Small but not serious restoration of the upper cover.
My orders
Sale information
Sales conditions
Return to catalogue