AN ONLOOKER IN FRANCE 1917-1919

First edition, first printing. Inscribed by the artist with a full page original drawing. Publishers original green cloth binding with gilt lettering and ruling to spine. Illustrated with 96 plates throughout the text. A very good copy, the binding a little rubbed and bumped, the spine with evidence of a removed label, but overall sound and the gilt still bright. The contents are entirely complete, the inner hinges cracked but holding, the occasional finger mark to the margins otherwise clean throughout. Bookplate of the author and journalist Cecil Roberts to the front pastedown, with his notes in blue ink concerning the provenance of this volume to the blank underside of the frontispiece. Housed in a purpose made black quarter morocco solander case.

With a full page original ink self portrait of Orpen on the front blank endpaper, depicting the artist painting the famous American Wall Street lawyer and art collector, Paul Cravath. The drawing is inscribed by Orpen at the bottom of the page "My very dear Mr Cravath - It was a big job to tackle / on those hot summer afternoons you must admit / All good wishes in 1922. / Yours / William Orpen". Roberts' note on the reverse of the frontispiece explains that Cravath was presented the book, embellished with hand drawn portraits of both subject and artist on completion of his commissioned portrait (painted at Cravath's Regency Long Island home), for which Orpen was paid a sum of £5000 plus expenses. The house, and presumably some of the contents, was bought by Baron Eugene de Rothschild after Corvath's death in 1940, Roberts noting that he was often his guest there, although doesn't elaborate as to how the book entered into his ownership. There is one more note from Roberts, under the portrait of Lord Riddell (plate XLIX) mentioning his being at a press dinner given for him in 1919. Aside from being third in charge, and legal advisor, of the American War Mission during the Inter-allied War Conference of 1917, the first American mission to a European council in history, Paul Cravath is mainly known for his "Cravath System" which transformed the way law firms work and is still in use today. The "Cravath system" included hiring new law school graduates, then training them within the firm as associates, and eventually inviting the best to become partners. Throughout the twentieth century most of the growth of the big law firms relied on this system of recruiting, internal training, and loyalty to the firm.