Karl Maria Diez
3 albums/17 artworks – Karl Maria Diez (1883 – 1941) – often abbreviated C.M. Diez- was an Austrian‑German illustrator whose work is closely associated with the erotic strand of Art Nouveau at the turn of the twentieth century. He is best remembered for providing the elaborate title plate and a series of sensual vignettes for the first complete German translation of the Marquis de Sade’s Les 120 Journées de Sodome (published privately in Leipzig in 1908). The book’s decorative programme with gold‑stamped leather binding and ornamental initials completed with the distinctive, flowing line work of Diez was executed in the workshop of Rosenburg and remains a landmark of clandestine erotic publishing. Beyond the Sade edition, Diez supplied Art Nouveau‑style decorations and bindings for the German edition of Julian Robinson’s Gynecocracy (translated by E. von Berini‑Bell), another work that…
