Magic of Art Nouveau: Unboxing "Le Pater", & other Century Guild treasures

Added: 2026-05-28

[00:00:00]Hello everyone. I've been waiting to open this package for quite a while.

[00:00:05]This is a parcel that I received from Century Guild.

[00:00:09]There's a new edition of Le Père that's just come out and I think I think that's what's contained inside here, but I'm going to open it up and I'm going to find out. I've had this on my table waiting to be opened for just so long. Like every single day >> [laughter] >> I mean don't pass my table going like I can't wait to open this, but I don't have time right now to do an unboxing video. I really really want to make sure that I capture this. So, now is finally the moment folks. Now is finally the time that I get to open this and I can already see that there's more than just Le Père inside here. Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness.

[00:00:54]Oh, big breath. Big breath. Oh my word.

[00:00:59]Okay. Okay. Okay. All right.

[00:01:02]Let's see. Let's let's bring it all out.

[00:01:06]I'll take this out and this is so long.

[00:01:11]Oh, this is a nice new edition folks.

[00:01:15]This is a lovely new edition. Let's put the box away on the floor.

[00:01:22]And let's check this out.

[00:01:26]Oh, isn't that lovely?

[00:01:29]So, for those of you who don't know Le Père, I I've already done a review of the first edition of this that came out a little while ago. This is significantly lovelier with a with a faux leather.

[00:01:43]I'm assuming it's faux leather. I can't imagine the cost of actual leather on this.

[00:01:48]It feels so nice. It feels so warm and and soft. It might in fact be leather. I I'm not sure. I'm not sure.

[00:01:59]Going to need to check that.

[00:02:02]Yeah, so the first edition came out I'm going to say about 4 5 years ago now, right?

[00:02:08]And it was literally at the time that I received it it was it was the loveliest thing that I'd ever seen.

[00:02:14]It's still to this day in my top three most beautiful books on my on my shelves and that's because I've spent significant amounts of money on some lovely books.

[00:02:26]But uh oh Thomas, uh so Thomas Negovan who is the editor and creator of this has very very kindly dedicated this one to me. That's very very kind.

[00:02:43]And and yeah, let's let's see. So there was a second edition which was a paperback and in the paperback there was just some additional material, some edited text.

[00:03:01]But it was significantly smaller. Right?

[00:03:03]I mean you can see it can barely fit on my table, you know, it's just gigantic.

[00:03:08]And so this new edition has got all of the content of the paperback and all of the size. Hold on, let me see if I can if I can unclip this. No. No, I can't can't unclip it. Come on. Please.

[00:03:27]No. No. No option to unclip it. You can you can see more or less what's going on here hopefully.

[00:03:35]There's this very very thick red ribbon which I want to show you. It's a really lush. Right? And sometimes you get ribbons in books and they're these little shoe string things.

[00:03:52]And this is really lovely and it's shiny and soft and it looks exactly like it belongs here.

[00:04:02]So yeah, Alphonse Mucha who is my favorite artist.

[00:04:10]Bar none? Bar none, I think. Yeah, I think even even even William Turner up here, I think he he might come second.

[00:04:21]And so Alphonse Mucha was very heavily involved in occult spheres. I want to say lodges.

[00:04:32]So the the Freemasons of course, but but also was very much involved in simply in occult learning and and and this kind of stuff.

[00:04:42]And so yes, one of the one of the things that he decided to do was to take the Lord's Prayer and um to illustrate it in seven parts.

[00:04:53]So this is the the cover of the original. Hold on, if I bring this a little bit like this, you'll be able to see it better.

[00:05:02]This is the cover of the yeah, of the original work, right? That I've seen actually in Prague. It's uh on display in the two Alphonse Mucha museums there.

[00:05:15]So they've got two copies, right? One in each.

[00:05:19]And yes, and so each part of the Lord's Prayer gets an introductory page like this, right? So in Latin and then a French translation of the Latin down there.

[00:05:36]Can see the Tetragrammaton over here.

[00:05:44]And And you have studies for it and so on.

[00:05:48]And then there is a commentary on that particular part of the prayer.

[00:05:57]Okay. And then there's an illustration.

[00:06:02]And these illustrations are absolutely beautiful.

[00:06:07]What's fascinating and a little controversial about these is that the the divine, right? That the people are reaching out towards is represented in this particular work as a feminine.

[00:06:29]And uh Yeah, it's just extremely striking.

[00:06:34]Extremely striking and it's very very visceral uh imagery, right?

[00:06:43]So beautiful.

[00:06:47]Yeah.

[00:06:48]So, this is the whole of the second half of the book Yeah, is is a facsimile with additional materials, studies, and and stuff like this.

[00:07:01]for the original.

[00:07:05]And the first half of the book is an examination of Alphonse Mucha's involvements with various aspects of the occult. It's a bit of a biography, and also looking a little bit deeply into what he was what he was getting into, right? What he was interested in, what influenced him spiritually and just absolutely fascinating. It's so so beautiful. So So, yeah. So, this second edition of the the large format, like the the ultimate large format trade.

[00:07:46]It's It's It's It's lovely, folks. It's absolutely lovely. The edges are gilded just as you might hope.

[00:07:56]Very very beautiful.

[00:07:59]Shimmery gold there.

[00:08:02]There.

[00:08:04]No, the quality on this is very high.

[00:08:13]Very very high quality.

[00:08:19]And then of course down the edge of the spine here in gold stamp we have like a symbol representing each of those seven parts of of the Our Father of the Paternoster.

[00:08:42]Fascinating fascinating stuff.

[00:08:55]There we are. There we are, folks.

[00:08:57]Really really lovely.

[00:09:00]Very very beautiful and and I feel quite privileged to have a second version of this in my possession.

[00:09:12]Let's I'll show you how this the the cover is UV spotted just to bring out the the texture there.

[00:09:22]So lovely.

[00:09:27]Beautiful beautiful stuff.

[00:09:31]There we go. There we go. Um thank you thank you to Century Guild.

[00:09:36]Uh now let's see the the second the parcel here with some extra stuff in it.

[00:09:47]Oh, how lovely. Okay.

[00:09:50]So, this is called Jugendstil.

[00:09:58]Okay.

[00:09:59]German Art Nouveau illustrations volumes 1 and 2 and 3.

[00:10:07]Ah, okay. Let's take a look at this.

[00:10:20]Term Art Nouveau is to describe the sinuous whiplash style inspired by nature, which is popular in the worlds of art, design, and architecture beginning around 1895.

[00:10:33]Let's take a look at this. Okay.

[00:10:39]So, yeah. So, looking at uh Art Nouveau in Germany.

[00:10:45]Fascinating stuff.

[00:10:49]Oh, how lovely.

[00:10:53]It's volume 1, volume 2.

[00:11:12]Very beautiful. Very, very beautiful and such lovely slipcase that it comes with.

[00:11:23]Glorious.

[00:11:26]Okay.

[00:11:27]Pop them back into their uh slipcase there.

[00:11:42]Beautiful. Lovely, lovely stuff.

[00:11:45]And then Spellbound.

[00:11:48]So exploring the world of witchcraft and the occult through the vivid art of vintage paperbacks.

[00:11:58]Okay.

[00:11:59]Oh. This has been split open, I think.

[00:12:03]That the packaging itself had been opened by customers. Yeah. And it got sent to Poland.

[00:12:15]Isn't that lovely?

[00:12:17]Think I'm I may need to be a little bit careful about what I show you in here. I might need to or maybe not. Maybe not.

[00:12:26]So yeah, these are the art of pulp paperbacks that explored the occult in the 60s, I guess.

[00:12:39]And 70s.

[00:12:43]Very, very lovely and show you that as well.

[00:12:51]Very cool.

[00:12:55]Beautiful.

[00:12:57]And look at that.

[00:12:59]Purple hinge there.

[00:13:02]Okay.

[00:13:05]Very accurate.

[00:13:18]Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful stuff.

[00:13:21]Thank you so, so much to Century Guild for sending these treasures over.

[00:13:27]I am so delighted.

[00:13:31]What beautiful beautiful works. And and I think that uh yeah, many people watching are going to be very excited to to see these as well. You'll find links to all of them down in the description, of course. I encourage you to go and check out Century Guilds' offerings.

[00:13:49]They very often have new Kickstarters going. There is a Kickstarter going at the moment. Ils Sont which is a fairy tale um that has been illustrated by Alphonse Mucha.

[00:14:02]Bringing out the occult themes of that fairy tale. It sounds really very exciting and very beautiful.

[00:14:09]So, I'll leave links to that Kickstarter down below as well. Thank you all so much everyone for watching. Do take care of yourselves. Take care of each other.

[00:14:17]I'll see you soon with another video.

[00:14:18]Bye-bye.