This is an exacting facsimile—and first re-print overall—of Baron Adolph de Meyer’s especially rare book Le Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune, first published in 1914 in a handcrafted edition of 1,000. Today only six copies are known to exist, and this Steidl edition recreates a copy from Karl Lagerfeld’s personal collection. De Meyer’s book is a privileged record of Vaslav Nijinsky’s performance in the first ballet he choreographed, set to a score by Claude Debussy and inspired by a poem by Stéphane Mallarmé for Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. The ballet debuted in Paris in 1912 and shocked audiences and critics with its eroticism and unconventional choreography. De Meyer’s 30 photographs capture Nijinsky’s animalistic performance in luminous, dreamlike detail.