Garvarni's Women In Lace

by Stephen J. Gertz

L'Amore

In 1844, Joseph Méry published Les Parures (The Ornaments) and Les Joyaux (The Jewels), each a "Fantasie par Gavarni," the two volumes graced with a total of thirty-two engravings by Paul Gavarni (1804-1866), the great French caricaturist and artist. A special and now quite rare issue of the volumes was simultaneously published, the steel engravings printed and delicately colored on paper with borders cut to various lace patterns, or decoupes en dentelles (cut lace), commonly known as doilies.

Schall (shawl)

Gordon Ray, author of The Art of the French Illustrated Book 1700 To 1914, only had a copy of the ordinary issue, but noted that the special edition was far more appealing, and believed that by presenting the plates in this stylish manner "Gavarni's designs become fashion plates of the first order."

Yes, the engravings depict costumes and fashions but are as much about the women as their clothing. An image of a Oriental woman in repose while smoking a hashish pipe is not about her manner of dress, exotic as it is. As captioned, the moon doesn't have to hit your eye like a big pizza pie to know that's L'Amore. And when an exotically clad Eastern woman is posed with her décolletage on vivid display, the rockets red glare, breasts bursting in air to give proof through the night, it ain't about her turban, despite the caption. This is oh la la, Paris, 1844. If it has yet become clear, The Ornaments and The Jewels do not refer to adornments for women but to the women themselves

Turban

Paul Gavarni was the nom d'art of Sulpice Guillaume Chevalier. His rise to fame coincided with that of Charles Philipon (1800-1861), the Parisian publisher whose satirical newspapers featured sharp lithographed caricatures with pointed captions (written by Philipon) that often became the subject of the French authorities attention; politics in France at this time was often chaotic.

The plates were engraved by Charles Michel Geoffroy (1819-1882) based upon Gavarni's designs.

La Mantille

Gavarni's work for Philipon humorously essayed the most striking characteristics, foibles and vices of the various classes of French society, in the same vein as Henry Monnier, who also worked for Philipon. Indeed, Philipon discovered and fostered the careers of many of Paris's finest young artists.

Though issued separately, the two books are considered a set but as such are scarce, particularly in this, the special issue. "La reunion des deux ouvrages avec les gravures marges de dentelles est assez rare rencontrer" (Carteret).

A beautiful set of the special issue of Les Parures and Les Joyaux has recently come into the marketplace.
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[GAVARNI]. MÉRY, Joseph. Les parures. Fantaisie par Gavarni. Texte par Méry. Histoire de la mode par le Cte. Foelix. (Perles et Parures). Paris: G. De Gonet, n.d. [1844]. Quarto. [2], 300pp. Frontispiece and fifteen steel engraved hors texte plates by Geoffroy after Gavarni, the whole finished by hand in colors, and the plates themselves printed on doilies tipped onto pink guards, the pink visible throughout the elaborately full percaline, elaborately gilt and colored with designs on both covers and spine.  Publisher’s original full percaline. All edges gilt.

Together with:

[GAVARNI]. MÉRY, Joseph. Les joyaux. Fantaisie par Gavarni. Texte par Méry. Minéralogie des dames par Cte. Foelix. (Perles et Parues.) Paris: G. De Gonet, n.d. [1844]. [2], 316pp. Frontispiece and 16 steel-engraved hors texte plates by Geoffroy after Gavarni, each finished by hand in colors, and the plates printed on doilies in the same format as the above volume. Publisher’s original full percaline. All edges gilt.

Carteret III.461; Ray 209a-210; Sander 468
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Images courtesy of Ars Libri Ltd, currently offering these volumes, with our thanks.
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Of Related Interest:

Gavarni's Paris Mornings and Mailbox.

Deceit They Name Is Woman, Thy Name Is Delilah!

How Did Hand-Colorists in the Past Know What Colors To Use?
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Goethe's Great Book On Color

By Stephen J. Gertz

[Goethe] delivered in full measure what was promised by the title of his excellent work: data toward a theory of colour. They are important, complete, and significant data, rich material for a future theory of colour. He has not, however, undertaken to furnish the theory itself; hence, as he himself remarks and admits on page xxxix of the introduction, he has not furnished us with a real explanation of the essential nature of colour, but really postulates it as a phenomenon, and merely tells us how it originates, not what it is" (Schopenhauer, On Vision and Colors).

Zur Farbenlehre (Theory of Colors), written by poet, dramatist, novelist, and philosopher Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in 1810, is his work concerning the nature of color and how humans perceive it.

In it, Goethe, who was motivated by his interest in painting, describes, in some of the earliest published accounts, colored shadows, refraction, and chromatic aberations.

Goethe, in contrast to Newton, was not concerned with the physics of color, analytic measurement and the cold math. He concentrates on how we see it.

"Along with the rest of the world I was convinced that all the colors are contained in the light; no one had ever told me anything different, and I had never found the least cause to doubt it, because I had no further interest in the subject.

"But how I was astonished, as I looked at a white wall through the prism, that it stayed white! That only where it came upon some darkened area, it showed some color, then at last, around the window sill all the colors shone... It didn't take long before I knew here was something significant about color to be brought forth, and I spoke as through an instinct out loud, that the Newtonian teachings were false"

Goethe's color wheel.

He does not bother with color as a physical phenomenon to be dissected. The book presents, to the contrary, Goethe's philosophy of color and how it is perceived in various situations.

Philosophers and psychologists embraced Zur Farbenlehre; physicists rejected it.

Wittgenstein, for instance, distinguishes between the science of optics, as developed by Newton, and Goethe's phenomenology of color:

"Goethe's theory of the origin of the spectrum isn't a theory of its origin that has proved unsatisfactory; it is really not a theory at all. Nothing can be predicted by means of it. It is, rather, a vague schematic outline, of the sort we find in James's psychology. There is no experimentum crucis for Goethe's theory of colour" (Remarks on Color).

Goethe talks about light and darkness, boundaries, the light and dark spectra, and the history and influence of color on the arts, in philosophy, and, of all things, on Latin American flags.

If any of the gorgeous plates in the book, such as the above, seem vaguely familiar, it is because Zur Farbenlehre had a major influence upon modern art, i.e. no Goethe, no Kandinsky, et al.

"Goethe's colour theory has in many ways borne fruit in art, physiology and aesthetics. But victory, and hence influence on the research of the following century, has been Newton's" (Werner Heisenberg).

"Can you lend me [Goethe's] Theory of Colors for a few weeks? It is an important work. His last things are insipid" (Ludwig van Beethoven, Conversation-book, 1820).

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GOETHE, Johann Wolfgang von. Zur Farbenlehre. [with] Erklärung der zu Geothe's Farbenlehre gehörigen Tafeln. [with] Anzeige und Uebersicht des Goethischen Werkes zur Farbenlehre. 

First edition of the text volumes of Goethe's work on color theory, second editions of the companion volumes Erklärung and Anzeige (plates). Tübingen (and Vienna): J.G. Cotta, 1810 and 1812. Two octavo and one quarto volumes.

Dictionary of Scientific Biography V, pp. 442-446. Hagen I, 347, 348b, 348c.

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Images courtesy of Asher Rare Books, currently offering this item, with our thanks.

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A 19th Century Emily Post On Laughing Gas

by Stephen J. Gertz

When a book purporting to be a guide to proper etiquette presents  with a titlepage depicting a gentleman hogging all the chairs in the room as he tips backward on one, his feet upon another, hat and gloves planted on yet one more, his right arm casually draped over his chair's arm, cigarette dangling from his lips as he casually reads a volume that is clearly not the Bible (a book traditionally requiring both hands to read), we know that we are dealing with not just any ol' book of etiquette.

Should you get into a Row leave your friend to fight it out,
being cursed low to be seen fighting in the Street.

Here we are confronted by an author, vintage early nineteenth century but influenced by the Punk Movement of the twentieth century, "a shadowy figure" who has flipped the bird to the Queen's propriety. Call it The Anarchist's Guide To Manners; or, Social Grace Gets the Shaft, Gentility Takes a Dive, and the Class System Drowns.

Servants should never condescend to notice
tradespeoples' Wretches, as it shows a want of dignity.

An anonymously written and illustrated satire in panorama format with hand-colored engraved title-page, and twenty-three hand colored and captioned engraved plates without imprint, the only clue to its authorship is the signing, "HH," found on some of the plates.

There are some Old People who affect a dislike for
Tobacco Smoke when at Meals. Stuff!
You may as well object to the smell of the Meat!

Who is "HH," this beau-jester undermining interpersonal relations, Western Civilization and all it stands for?  Hans Holbein? Humbert Humbert? Hubert Humphrey?

Publicans should never forget to taste their Customers
Liquor first - it looks friendly and condescending.

The Shadow knows:

Wha a Goth he must have been who call'd fashion a
foolish thing. How foolish a Man wold look out of it!!

"Henry Heath (fl. 1822–1842), caricaturist, is a shadowy figure. Because of a similarity in style between William and Henry Heath and their collaboration on three prints, it has been suggested that they were related, even as brothers (George, Catalogue, 9.liv). Henry Heath etched theatrical portraits from 1822 and both social and political caricatures from 1824, his work being published by Fores and Gans. In 1831 he started to imitate the political caricatures of HB, changing from etching to lithography and adopting the monogram HH. About this time various sets of his comic vignettes in the manner of George Cruikshank were issued and were collected in 1840 under the title of The Caricaturist's Sketch Book; in the 1830s he also drew cockney sportsmen, following the example of Robert Seymour. One cartoon by him was published in Punch in 1842. In the same year he drew some amusing caricatures of Queen Victoria's visit to Scotland, after which, according to M. H. Spielmann (The History of Punch, 1895, 452), he emigrated to Australia. Dorothy George called him ‘a competent and versatile but very imitative caricaturist’ (George, Catalogue, 10.xliv)" (Oxford Online DNB).

Grimacing behind a visitor is esteemed
excessively well-bred in young Ladies

In its irreverent attitude and inversion of acceptable behavior, Heath's The  Book of Etiquette is on a par with Pierre Loüys Manuel de civilité pour les petites filles à l'usage des maisons d'éducation, a book of etiquette for young girls to assist in reaching their potential on the expressway to erotic fulfillment and eternal damnation.

Perhaps this book of demented etiquette was, indeed, written by Humbert Humbert before he met You-Know-Who.

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HEATH, Henry. The Book of Etiquette. London: T. McLean, [ca. 1830].

First edition. Octavo (6 7/8 x 3 7/8 in; 175 x 98 mm). Hand-colored engraved title-page, and twenty-three hand colored and captioned engraved plates, mounted on stubs, without imprint as issued but some carry the initials "HH."

Abbey, Life in England, 513.

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Images coutrtesy of David Brass Rare Books, with our thanks.
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The Story Of Nobody, By Somebody, Illustrated By Someone

By Stephen J. Gertz

The Original Story Of O.

Ex Nihilo Nihil Fit
(From Nothing Comes Nothing).

Since Nothing is with Nothing fraught
Then Nobody must spring from naught.

"Nobody knows the trouble I've seen..."

But Nobody's not talking so we have to depend upon Something Concerning Nobody (1814), a curious satire edited by Somebody, and delightfully illustrated by Someone, for answers. Nobody has nothing to worry about in this testament to his non-existence; Nobody, it turns out, lives. It's Being and Nothingness without the annoying phenomenological ontology, cut-to-the-chase existentialism. Nobody, it turns out, is somebody and nothing to sneeze at.

Nobody's afraid of him.

Somebody, Nobody's biographer,  begins with a Dedication to the object of his essay: "I...content myself with courting Nobody's applause, whose patronage I can at all times command, heedless of public approbation," signing it, "With all due deference, Sir, Your most obsequious And very humble servant, Somebody."

Nobody at the door.

It is Nobody's curse that he has no body,
simply head, arms and legs.

Somebody did his homework.  It's a difficult task to trace the lifetime of "the renowned Mr. Nobody, whose existence was not only anterior to Adam's wearing green incomprehensibles, but even before the sun, moon, or stars  moved in the realms of endless space." With this statement, Somebody moves from existential philosophy into modern theoretical physics and the mind-bending consideration of something out of nothing, somebody out of Nobody, and chaos theory.

Somebody consulted "The Chronicles of Chaos, a volume so vast and intricate that few heads can even think upon the subject without becoming moon-struck; or, to speak more comprehensively, bereft of their wits." The work of Doctor Dennis O'Dunderum, Doctor Brady O'Blunder'em, and the compendium of Doctor Wiggins Wig-all ("published in folio, Basel edition, vol. 192, page 1379, beginning at line 106") was also studied. 

A domestic scene: Nobody at home.

"Ever since we were urchins at school we recollect the mischief that Nobody did. We find, however, by Somebody, that Nobody is more amusing than we suspected; though we fear, if we inquire for Somebody, as the author of Something about Nobody - nobody will own it. This piece, 'a trifle light as air,' will amuse in spite of criticism - not as a literary bagatelle, but as a 'Picture Book.' Nobody perhaps will know so much of the letter-press part as ourselves; nor will any body believe that Nobody goes to Paternoster Row, nor that Nobody travels.

"'On his way from the city towards the west end of the metropolis, our Nobody, instead of passing along St. Paul's Curchyard, though for to be godly, and therefore proceeded by the way of Paternoster Row, the renowned mart of literature, in order to take a peep at the liberal GENTLEMEN booksellers of the present era.'

"Winners will be laughers whether booksellers or authors, for which Nobody will blame them; and if Somebody's book 'goes off' well, buyers will laugh at Nobody" (The Critical Review, or, Annals of Literature, 1814, Article 20, p. 218).

Somebody & Nobody

Who's responsible for this work of mind-warping whimsy? Who is the Somebody behind Nobody?

William Henry Ireland (1775 - 1835)  is the pseudonymous Somebody. He is known as a poet, writer of gothic novels, and histories. But his primary claim to fame is as the Thomas J. Wise of his time.

"Perhaps the most brazen literary forgeries of all were those of William Henry Ireland. William Henry Ireland was born in London in 1777, the son of Samuel Ireland, a self-taught artist who had achieved considerable commercial success with a series of illustrated travel books. Samuel Ireland also fancied himself an antiquarian. He collected books and artwork and had an enthusiasm for William Shakespeare which bordered on idolatry. His devotion was such that he read nightly to his family from the works of Shakespeare and sought memorabilia and artifacts relating to the Bard. During a research trip to Stratford, for what was later published as Picturesque Views on the Upper, or Warwickshire Avon (1795), Samuel Ireland is alleged to have been duped into purchasing such fraudulent artifacts as a purse and chair formerly belonging to Shakespeare. His son William accompanied him on this trip and was able to witness firsthand his father's passion and, perhaps gullibility, towards any and all things relating to Shakespeare.

"William Henry Ireland, like his father, was an avid reader and a collector of books and antiquities. His biographers suggest he was also familiar with James Macpherson's Ossian poems and with the life and work of Thomas Chatterton. At some point, the younger Ireland apparently decided to emulate these two figures in an effort to satisfy his father's desire to obtain a document in Shakespeare's handwriting...

"In December 1794, William Henry Ireland informed his father that he had discovered a cache of old documents in the possession of a wealthy acquaintance. Among them was a deed bearing the signature of William Shakespeare which he accepted as a gift from his friend on the condition that it remain anonymous. William in turn gave it to his father who was beside himself with joy at his son's discovery. William had satisfied his father's lifelong dream to possess an actual specimen of William Shakespeare's signature" (William Henry Ireland and the Shakespeare Fabrications, University of Delaware Special Collections).

Nobody scents it.

And what of the anonymous artist who has so keenly captured the essence of Nobody with nothing to go on? 

George Moutard Woodward (1760?-1809), “caricaturist, son of William Woodward of Stanton Hall, Derbyshire, was born in that county about 1760. He received no artistic training, but, having much original talent, came to London, with an allowance from his father, and became a prolific and popular designer of social caricatures, much in the style of Bunbury, which were etched chiefly by Rowlandson and Isaac Cruikshank. Although their humour was generally of a very coarse and extravagant kind, they display a singular wealth of imagination and insight into character, and some are extremely entertaining. Among the best are ‘Effects of Flattery,’ ‘Effects of Hope,’ ‘Club of Quidnuncs,’ ‘Everybody in Town,’ ‘Everybody out of Town,’ and ‘Specimens of Domestic Phrensy.’ Woodward…was of dissipated and intemperate habits, spending much of his time in taverns, and died in a state of penury at the Brown Bear public-house in Bow Street, Covent Garden, in November 1809” (Oxford DNB).

Nobody arrested in his Minority.A case of arrested development.

.

It is ironic that the man who forged Shakespeare would make much ado about Nobody. 

In the modern world, the subject of something about Nobody was revisited by one of America's  lesser known philosophers, from the Steubenville, Ohio, school of thought.



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[IRELAND, William Henry]. [WOODWARD, George Moutard, illustrator].  Something Concerning Nobody. Edited by Somebody. Embellished with Fourteen Characteristic Etchings. London: Printed for Robert Scholey, 1814.

First edition. Octavo (7 3/8 x 4 7/8 in; 188 x 125mm) . xv, 191 pp. Fourteen hand-colored engraved plates.

Regarding authorship, see British Museum N&Q, 4th ser., VII, 474.

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Images courtesy of David Brass Rare Books, with our thanks.
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Le Bon Genre: Good Taste is Timeless in Post-Revolutionary France

by Stephen J. Gertz

Rarely seen, the Parisian scene during the rise of the Post-Revolution French middle class  comes alive in  Observations sur les Modes et les Usages de Paris, aka Le Bon Genre.

Originally  published in 1817 with enlarged editions following in 1822 and 1827, only one copy of this title in any 19th century edition has come to auction within the last thirty-six years, the third (1827) and only available early edition, in 1993. OCLC/KVK note only six copies of this edition in library holdings worldwide, no copies of the first edition and only two copies of the 1822 edition.

 

Le Bon Genre was one of the earliest series of prints to record the social trends and leisure activities of contemporary Parisians. It is the most important fashion portfolio of its time documenting, through its caricatures, the rise of modern Paris and the emerging middle-class bourgeois, its fashions, recreations and dating customs.

It also has fun at visitors' expense, particularly the English, whose customs and fashions the French found incomprehensible and unfashionable; the years of hostility between France and England did nothing to improve relations and the French lost few opportunities to ridicule the British.

Le Bon Genre's popularity influenced most of the later fashion illustrators and journals, as well as the satirical albums typical of France, 1830-1860, and it remains an important record of French social history. It is, indeed, the key illustrated social history of Parisian life of its time, bearing witness to the colorful  post-Revolution period of Parisian society as it evolved into the early Republican era.

Of particular interest is the descriptive text preceding the plates that details the content of each engraving. One is astonished and charmed by images of a  trio enjoying a magic lantern show (#31); three women rapturously eating sorbets (#4); a  trained and costumed dog act (#35); a circus balancing act (#91); a man who eats anything (#93); a huge amusement park slide (#97); and so many more enchanting engravings delicately and vividly hand-colored.

“Le Bon Genre…was first published in 1817 and went through several editions. This is a record of English and French fashions since the beginning of the nineteenth century; the English fashions are more in the nature of caricatures, to show how badly Englishwomen dress as compared with the Parisiennes” (Vyvyan Holland, Hand Coloured Fashion Plates 1770 to 1899, p. 51).

“The Bon Genre’s first edition, 104 plates, appeared in 1817. The 1822 edition included eleven additional plates; a third edition was published in 1827. Its illustrations are lively and witty statements of the life of Paris since the beginning of XIXc., with a text of explanatory paragraphs, rather than fashion plates” (Millia Davenport, The Book of Costume, II, p. 814).

“Georges-Jacques Gatine was the leading costume engraver of his time. For many years he supplied plates for the Journal des Dames. He engraved the 115 designs which make up Le Bon Genre, a lively mélange caricaturing people and scenes of contemporary interest” (Ray, The Art of the French Illustrated Book, p. 141).

Le Bon Genre's publisher and editor, Pierre Joseph Antoine Le Bouc de Mésangère (1761-1830), better known by the name of Le Mésangère, was a fascinating character whose eclectic career covered a very wide period, from the French Revolution (1789) up to the Second Restoration (1815 -1830).

First an eccleslastlc, philosopher and writer, then fashion journalist, Mésangère was, for more than thirty years, editor-in-chief of Le Journal des Dames, a periodical that had an enormous influence upon contemporary French standards of elegance and taste. Born in Anjou, 1761 to a middle-class family, Mésangère entered the order Congregation of the Brothers in 1784, and held the philosophie belles lettres Chair at the College de la Fleche. In hiding during the Terror (1793-1794), after Robesplerre's death (July 28, 1794) he began to be known as a writer for Parisian literary journals.

He wrote Le Voyageur a Paris ou Tableau pittoresque et moral de cette capitale (1797) a book that gained a certain notoriety. In 1799 he became editor of Le Journal des Dames, a woman's magazine founded two years earlier. It reigned supreme amongst the epoch's periodicals for ladies. With engraver Gatine executing the designs, Mésangère was the pre-eminent writer, editor, and publisher of works devoted to French women's fashion of his time.

The contributing artists to Le Bon Genre included George Dutailly, François Joseph Bosio, Louis Marie Lante, Horace Vernet, and others but it is Mésangère (the editor and publisher who guided them), and Gatine (the engraver who executed their designs), who were, and remain, the stars here.

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[BON GENRE, LE]. Observations sur les Modes et les Usages de Paris, pour Servir d'Explication aux 115 Caricatures Publées Sous le Titre de Bon Genre, Depuis le Commencement du Dix-Neuviéme Siècle. Paris: Chez L'Editeur [Pierre de le Mésangère], 1827.

Third edition, with eleven additional plates not found in the first edition of 1817. Folio (15 1/2 x 10 5/8 in; 394 x 263 mm). [4], 27 pp of descriptive text, 115 hand-colored plates engraved by Georges-Jacques Gatine and printed by Vassal et Essling.

Colas 2240. Vicaire I, 839-842. Rahir 332.

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Images courtesy of David Brass Rare Books, with our thanks.
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Human Butterflies Aflutter at Christie's

by Stephen J. Gertz

In nature a repulsive caterpillar turns into a lovely butterfly.  But with humans it is the other way around:  a lovely butterfly turns into a repulsive caterpillar  - Anton Chekhov

I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I am a man  - Chuang Tzu

The caterpillar does all the work but the butterfly gets all the publicity  - George Carlin

On Thursday June 23, 2011, Christie's is offering a copy a one of the most stunning anthropomorphic works ever produced. Les Papillons Métamorphoses Terrestres de Peuples de l'Air, published in 1852 and illustrated by Amédée Varin, depicts humans as butterflies within natural settings.

"I saw a passenger sitting beside the road."

The butterflies are free - Charles Dickens (Bleak House).

Generally speaking, yes. But if you wish to net these particular lepidopteri you'll have to lay out a little nectar to attract them. Christie's is estimating the book to sell for $2,000 - $3000.

Its original cloth binding (see above) is as gorgeous as can be imagined.

"She swayed gently in the air."

Les Papillons Métamorphoses Terrestres de Peuples de l'Air was inspired by J.J. Grandville's Les Métamorphoses de Jour (Paris: 1828-29). Grandville (pseudonym of Jean Ignace Isidore Gérard), the great French caricaturist, created seventy-two images of various animals as humans in social situations, skillfully imparting human emotions to the animals' faces. It's a satire of human behavior. 

"Hopping and dancing was their most attractive occupation."

Varin (1818-1883), however, was not a satirist but a fantasist. From a dynasty of artists dating back to the seventeenth century, he began his career engraving fashion designs and religious images.

"Christmas Tree."

"The removal of Cypris."

The thirty-five hand-colored engraved plates Varin created for Les Papillons Métamorphoses Terrestres de Peuples de l'Air are quite spectacular, delicately searing themselves into memory. Charming, lovely, enchanting and utterly delightful they endure as one of the most pleasing color-plate suites ever published, tout sweet. Popular when originally published, the images remain so and have been reproduced as posters, greeting cards, etc.

"Promenade of Teschou-Lama."

"The Lady of the Butterflies."

Antony Meray (1817-18??), who, in concert with Eugene Nus, wrote the accompanying text, was the author of, amongst other volumes, Bibliographie Des Chansons, Fabliaux, Contes En Vers Et En Prose (1859); Les libres prêcheurs devanciers de Luther et de Rabelais: étude historique, critique et anecdotique sur les XIVe, XVe et XVIe siècles (1860); and La Vie Au Temps Des Cours D'Amour: Croyances, Usages Et Moeurs Intimes Des XIE, Xiie, Xiiie Siecles (1873).

Faster, faster, my sister, Goul-Gou-li, cried.

"Fleur de vanilla receives a farewell from her fiancé."

In a glaring omission Varin left out the most renowned human butterfly, now a cultural icon, forgivable only because this species had yet to be identified at the time the artist created Les Papillons Métamorphoses Terrestres des Peuples de l'Air.

Papillon McQueen, wings clipped.

...And his sister, Butterfly McQueen.
"I don't know nothin' 'bout birthin' butterflies."

The year before Les Papillons Métamorphoses Terrestres des Peuples de l'Air was published, Varin produced L'Empire des Légumes (1851), aka Drôleries végétales, his initial anthropomorphic collaboration with Meray and Nus. Let's hear it for whimsical veggies with a sense of humor. (An artichoke  heart, a roasted red pepper, and a grilled asparagus spear walk into a bar, and the bartender says, "Whad'ya think this is, a restaurant? We don't serve antipasti. Scram!").

A vinegar and oil shampoo.
Extra-green virgin - the oil, not the veggies.
From L'Empire des Légumes.

The Empire of the Vegetables is not to be confused with The Empire of the Ants (1977), a radioactive B-movie, very loosely based upon the H.G. Wells story (1905), in which wooden actors portray vapid humans with vegetarian results, to wit, as turnips, no picnic for the actors, the humans, the ants, and, especially, the viewers.

"I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords."
- Joan Collins as Marilyn Fryser.
.

A traitorous sentiment from the comely Ms. Collins as Marilyn Fryser, a real estate developer with well-developed real estate, and short-sighted; just wait until the sex-bomb is seduced by a giant bedbug.

But if the insects are butterflies, no tyranny in the boudoir expected; blue skies shall reign. Yet sunshine, lollipops, polka-dots, and moonbeams will only last so long. Power corrupts, and even the meek butterfly can get all puffed up by world domination. 

I remember Mothra.

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MERAY,  Antony and NUS, Eugene; VARIN, Amédée (illustrator). Les Papillons Métamorphoses Terrestres des Peuples de l'Air. Paris: Gabriel de Gonet, n.d. [1852]. First edition. Two large octavo volumes (262 x 172 mm). 238; 258, [4, as contents and index] pp. Thirty-five hand-colored engraved plates, including frontispieces. Original blue cloth, pictorially stamped upper board, gilt butterfly to lower board, spine pictorially stamped.

Carteret III, 492.  Vicaire VI, 246.

N.B.: Some websites incorrectly state the date of publication as 1862.

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Images from Les Papillons Métamorphoses Terrestres des Peuples de l'Air courtesy of Christie's, with our thanks.
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Of related interest: Early American Butterflies Alight in South Carolina.
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