Židovský Hřbitov. (The Jewish Cemetery)

Toyen's copy of her friend Vitezlav Nezval's verse illustrated by Jindrich Styrsky and designed by Karel Teige.

This extraordinary copy of 'Židovský Hřbitov' unites the leading lights of the Czech artistic avant-garde: the poet Nezval with his signed presentation, the artist Styrsky who has signed all of the original lithographs and inscribed the book with a long quote from de Quincey, the designer and theorist Teige who was responsible for the typography and mise en page and, of course, Toyen herself, to whom the work is presented. All were members of the group 'Devětsil' and Toyen and Styrsky had developed the credo of 'Artificialism' in Paris in 1927, their response to Surrealism; the illustrations by Styrsky for 'Židovský Hřbitov' belong to his pre-Surrealist Artificialist oeuvre.

From the edition limited to 220 numbered copies on Hollande Van Gelder; this copy signed by Nezval to initial blank and numbered to the justification in ink; also with Nezval's presentation to the initial blank beneath his signature, Styrsky's extensive and allusive manuscript quotation from de Quincey to the half-title and with all the original lithographs signed and dated '1928' in pencil by Styrsky.

Nezval's presentation is in black ink to the initial blank beneath his signature: 'Drahé Mance tuto knížku, kterou jsme dělali s Jindrou / vzpomínajíce na ni a smutni, protože se nevrátila / Její Sláva / V Praze 4. XII. 1928'.

Styrsky's extensive quotation in Czech - taken from Thomas de Quincey's 'Levana and Our Ladies of Sorrow' in 'Suspiria De Profundis: Being a Sequel to the 'Confessions of an Engllsh Opium-Eater''' - is in black ink to the half-title. A transcription of the manuscript is available on request.

All of the manuscript in the present copy is dated from within a very few days: Nezval's signature to an initial blank features the date '30.XI.1928' (presumably close to the date of publication / issue) while his presentation to Toyen is dated '4.XII.1928'; Styrsky's quotation is dated '5. prosince 1928'. In June 1928, Toyen travelled to Paris alone (most often she travelled with Styrsky) and only returned to Prague in January 1929; Nezval's presentation refers to this absence directly.

Toyen (1903 - 1980) was born Marie Čerminovà before adopting the androgynous mononym Toyen in 1923. Before the Czech Surrealist group (founded in 1934) which included Toyen, Styrsky, Teige and Nezval, there was 'Devětsil'. Founded in the early 1920s, 'Devětsil' was a major force of the European avant-garde and included among many others the quartet exemplified in this copy of 'Židovský Hřbitov'. Composed of Nezval's epic eponymous poem, itself a forerunner of the poet's Surrealist phase - it was included in his second Surrealist collection 'Praha s prsty deště' (Prague with Fingers of Rain) of 1936 - and Styrsky's six superbly evocative original lithographs. Here Styrsky's lithographs, almost photographic in effect and evoking rayograms or rayographs, are all signed and dated in pencil. Styrsky's original lithographs prefigure his illustrations for 'Les Chants de Maldoror' of 1929 and the Surrealist work of the 1930's. Undertaken after he and Toyen had spent time in Paris in the mid-1920s, these extraordinary abstractions and the verse they accompany underscore the 'Artificialist' credo the pair espoused: 'Artificialism is the assimilation of the painter and the poet' (Styrsky / Toyen, 1926). The typography and mise en page by Karel Teige bring unity to the text and illustration: the unpunctuated lines of verse and the interspersed lithographs are all printed recto only, giving both the attention of the reader that they deserve and underlining their interplay. The inscribed leaves - with Nezval's and Styrsky's contributions discrete - also conform to this system and all are enclosed within the vivid orange wrappers with Teige's beautiful lettering.

'Levana and Our Ladies of Sorrow' forms a part - as noted by Styrsky in his manuscript quotation - of Thomas de Quincey's extraordinary 'Suspirira de Produndis', itself considered by de Quincey to be the sequel to his 'Confessions of an English Opium-Eater'. Portions of 'Suspiria de Profundis' (including 'Levana and Our Ladies of Sorrow' were published in Blackwood's Magazine in 1845 but a larger part was not published until after de Quincey's death. Lauded by Baudelaire who translated 'Suspiria de Profundis' into French, de Quincey's prose poem was admired too by the Surrealists and Breton included him in his 'Anthologie de l'Humour Noir' (1940). 'Suspiria de Profundis' was first translated into Czech in the early twentieth century but we have been unable to trace the source for Styrsky's quotation (the most likely edition would be the 1927 edition featuring illustration by Josef Capek, a fellow member of 'Devětsil' but differences make it clear that this was not the source used). Intriguingly, Styrsky's quotation features three blank spaces, as if for a Surrealist game, each with a green crayon line inviting the reader to fill in the blanks. The blanks have been duly filled, appropriately with 'Mater Tenebrarum', 'nebývají' and 'Boha' in another hand and with a different ink; it seems likely given the presentation that the additions are by Toyen herself.

'Vitezslav Nezval, one of the greatest (but also most controversial) Czech poets, lived in a country whose history was rich in reversals and paradoxical changes, but also a country where poetry enjoyed extraordinary interest ... Nezval was one of those exceptional creative persons for whom everything they encounter turns into poetry ... That period [the end of the 1920s and beginning of the 1930s] (from which his poems about Prague date) may be regarded as the peak period of his creativity. Nezval had in him that which characterises a genius - the need to forever seek and find something new, a need further enhanced by the atmosphere of his day, which regarded novelty, freshness and rebellion against any tradition as its highest value ... '. (Ivan Klima).

'The third and last part of the dreams of an opium-eater has a lamentable title, which, however, is well justified, 'Suspiria de profundis'. In one of these visions appeared three unforgettable figures, mysteriously terrible like the Grecian 'Moires' and the 'Mothers' of the second 'Faust'. These are the followers of Levana, the austere goddess who takes up the new-born babe and perfects it by sorrow. As there were three Graces, three Fates, three Furies, three Muses in the primitive ages, so there were three goddesses of sorrow; they are our Notre-Dame des Tristesses. The eldest of the three sisters is called Mater lacrymarum, or Our Lady of Tears; the second Mater suspiriorum, Our Lady of Sighs; the third and youngest, Mater tenebrarum, Our Lady of Darkness, the most redoubtable of all, and of whom the strongest cannot dream without a secret terror. These mournful spectres do not speak the language of mortals; they weep, they sigh, and make terrible gestures in the shadows. Thus they express their unknown sorrows, their nameless anguish, the suggestions of solitary despair, all that there is of suffering, bitterness, and sorrow in the depths of the human soul. Man ought to take warning from these initiators: 'Thus will he see things that ought not to be seen, sights which are abominable, and unspeakable secrets; thus will he read the ancient truths, the sad, great, and terrible truths.'' (Théophile Gautier).

'Židovský Hřbitov' is rare on the market with only a few examples appearing in auction records. In institutional terms too the book is rare and we can locate less than a dozen examples: a single copy in the UK (at the British Library), a single copy in France (at the Bibliothèque Nationale), five copies in the US (at the NYPL, the Getty, Indiana, McGill and Yale) and two copies in the Czech Republic (Research Library Olomouc and the Czech National Library).

[see 'Prague with Fingers of Rain', Ewald Oser's translation of Nezval's 'Praha s prsty deště', Tarset, Northumberland, 2009; see 'Charles Baudelaire, His Life', Guy Thorne's translation of Théophile Gautier's 'Charles Baudelaire, Sa Vie ... &c.', London, 1915].