Gamiani, ou deux nuits d’excès (Gamiani, or Two Nights of Excess), generally believed to have been written by Alfred de Musset, is one of the best-known and most-illustrated of French erotic novels. Based on de Musset’s experiences with George Sand and her lesbian lover, Gamiani opens with Alcide watching Countess Gamiani and her young lover Fanny enjoying one another’s bodies. Very much aroused, Alcide reveals himself and joins them, and they spend the rest of their time together sharing their intimate stories and re-enacting scenes from them.

Gamiani is a text that many illustrators aspired to be commissioned for, and Egli achieved the accolade late in his career, when a group of rich bibliophiles asked him to produce some of the most explicit drawings of his long career.

The Carlègle-illustrated Gamiani was published ‘À l’Enseigne du Panier Fleuri’ (Le Panier Fleuri – The Flower Basket – was a well-known Paris brothel in the 1940s), in a limited numbered edition of 500 copies.