Venice, Frail Barrier: Portrait of a Disappearing City
Garden City: Doubleday & Company, 1975. Item #1282 Large 8vo. 285 x 220 mm., [11 ¼ x 8 ¾ inches]. xvi + 176pp. B&W photographs by the author throughout; 35 reproductions in color of paintings by the mid-18th century artist Gabriel Bella. Publisher’s maroon cloth with gold stamping on spine and title blind-stamped on front board; unclipped pictorial jacket. Book: Very Good. Jacket: Very Good.
First Edition. Richard de Combray (1931-2013) was a “citizen of the world,’ per the eulogizing New York Times, traveling widely in Europe and the Middle East, and living his life in Manhattan, the French Riviera, and Venice. This volume is part of that first wave of the late 20th century consciousness-raising about Venetian decay that began with Venezia Muore in 1970.
Featured among de Combray’s photos are previously unpublished paintings by the 18th century Venetian painter of public life, Gabriel Bella, all from the Querini-Stampalia gallery. They are fascinating, reproduced here to the best standards that 1975 color printing allowed.
Price: $100.00