Issued in conjuction with the exhibition of the same title held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 18 Sept. - 31 Dec. 2000.

The first in Nathalie Léger’s acclaimed genre-defying triptych of books about the struggles and obsessions of women artists. Exposition is the first in a triptych of books by the award-winning writer and archivist Nathalie Léger that includes Suite for Barbara Loden and The White Dress. In each, Léger sets the story of a female artist against the background of her own life and research—an archivist's journey into the self, into the lives that history hides from us. Here, Léger's subject is the Countess of Castiglione (1837–1899), who at the dawn of photography dedicated herself to becoming the most photographed woman in the world, modeling for hundreds of photos, including “Scherzo di Follia,” among the most famous in history. Set long before our own “selfie” age, Exposition is a remarkably modern investigation into the curses of beauty, fame, vanity, and age, as well as the obsessive drive to control and commodify one's image.

From the author of the acclaimed Queen of Fashion--a brilliant look at the glittering world of turn-of-the-century Paris through the first in-depth study of the three women Proust used to create his supreme fictional character, the Duchesse de Guermantes. Geneviève Halévy Bizet Straus; Laure de Sade, Comtesse de Adhéaume de Chevigné; and Élisabeth de Riquet de Caraman-Chimay, the Comtesse Greffulhe--these were the three superstars of fin-de-siècle Parisian high society who, as Caroline Weber says, "transformed themselves, and were transformed by those around them, into living legends: paragons of elegance, nobility, and style." All well but unhappily married, these women sought freedom and fulfillment by reinventing themselves, between the 1870s and 1890s, as icons. At their fabled salons, they inspired the creativity of several generations of writers, visual artists, composers, designers, and journalists. Against a rich historical backdrop, Weber takes the reader into these women's daily lives of masked balls, hunts, dinners, court visits, nights at the opera or theater. But we see as well the loneliness, rigid social rules, and loveless, arranged marriages that constricted these women's lives. Proust, as a twenty-year-old law student in 1892, would worship them from afar, and later meet them and create his celebrated composite character for The Remembrance of Things Past.

"In the course of fund-raising for civilian victims of World War I, Edith Wharton assembled this monumental benefit volume by drawing upon her connections to the era's leading authors and artists. The unique compilation forms a 'Who's Who' of early 20th century culture, featuring poetry, stories, illustrations, music and other contributions from scores of luminaries. ... Much of the text is presented in both English and French. Includes an Introduction by former U. S. President Theodore Roosevelt."--

This 1920 collection includes five timeless French fairy tales written by Comtesse De Segur and illustrated by the 19 year old Virginia Sterrett.

"The 253 works in the exhibition, many of them rare or unique and all of exceptional print quality, have been culled from the more than five thousand that comprise the legendary but seldom exhibited Gilman Paper Company Collection, the most important private collection of photographs in the world.

The Countryman. "You know how much, for some time past, the editions of the Elzevirs have been in demand. The fancy for them has even penetrated into the country. I am acquainted with a man there who denies himself necessaries, for the sake of collecting into a library (where other books are scarce enough) as many little Elzevirs as he can lay his hands upon. He is dying of hunger, and his consolation is to be able to say, 'I have all the poets whom the Elzevirs printed. I have ten examples of each of them, all with red letters, and all of the right date.' This, no doubt, is a craze, for, good as the books are, if he kept them to read them, one example of each would be enough." The Parisian. "If he had wanted to read them, I would not have advised him to buy Elzevirs. The editions of minor authors which these booksellers published, even editions 'of the right date,' as you say, are not too correct. Nothing is good in the books but the type and the paper. Your friend would have done better to use the editions of Gryphius or Estienne." This fragment of a literary dialogue I translate from 'Entretiens sur les Contes de Fees,' a book which contains more of old talk about books and booksellers than about fairies and folk-lore. The 'Entretiens' were published in 1699, about sixteen years after the Elzevirs ceased to be publishers. The fragment is valuable: first, because it shows us how early the taste for collecting Elzevirs was fully developed, and, secondly, because it contains very sound criticism of the mania. Already, in the seventeenth century, lovers of the tiny Elzevirian books waxed pathetic over dates, already they knew that a 'Caesar' of 1635 was the right 'Caesar,' already they were fond of the red-lettered passages, as in the first edition of the 'Virgil' of 1636. As early as 1699, too, the Parisian critic knew that the editions were not very correct, and that the paper, type, ornaments, and FORMAT were their main attractions. To these we must now add the rarity of really good Elzevirs.