Léon Carré’s In the Garden of Gems

Léonard Rosenthal’s follow-up to In the Kingdom of the Pearl was this volume with illustrations by Léon Carré. In the Garden of Gems was published in 1924 in an edition that matches the earlier book for page layout, print quality and decoration. The illustrator, Léon Carré (1878–1942), was more of a painter than a book illustrator, being one of the many Orientalist artists that France produced in the 19th century. Given the quality of his illustrations it’s a shame he didn’t work on more books, although there was a French edition of the Thousand and One Nights that he illustrated a few years later. Rosenthal’s note to the reader describes his own book as “the study of the passionate, obstinate, cruel, and sometimes tragic struggle waged by humankind to conquer precious stones, the examination of beliefs, allegories, legends, and symbolisms…”. Individual chapters are devoted to the history of the emerald, ruby and sapphire. As with the earlier book, each chapter is embellished with a…