Women Who Read and Write Too Much

By Stephen J. Gertz

Look at that! Instead of milk she is pouring shoe polish
into my hot chocolate! Enough with that damned novel!

In 1844, French painter and caricaturist Honoré Daumier published Les Bas Bleus, a series of forty lithographs satirizing bluestockings, i.e. intellectual women. They turn traditional gender roles topsy-turvy and cramp a man's style.

Instead of doing the laundry they hang men out to dry. Sacrebleu!

Oh Agony!.... To have spent my maidenhood dreaming of a
husband who, like me, adored hallowed poetry, and to wind up
with a husband who only likes to bait dudgeons...
the man was born to be a pike!...

Of Les Bas Bleus Gordon Ray wrote, "the bluestockings of this series are almost all literary ladies, and Daumier's satire is directed as much against the literary character in general as its feminine manifestations. At the same time, his attitude towards his subjects is consistently severe, and the fact that he made all forty plates in eight months, whereas most of his longer series extended over several years, suggests that they were inspired by deep-seated and well-developed convictions...

Goodbye Flora, my dear... don't forget to send two copies
of your frothy little pieces to the newspaper office...
and I shall whip them up in my article.

"Advocates of women's rights have as little reason to be grateful to Daumier for Les bas bleus as Jews have to be grateful to Forain for Psst...! [1898-99]... Nevertheless, the album contains some masterly designs" (The Art of the French Illustrated Book, pp 241-242).

- A woman like me... sew on a button?.... you must be out of your mind!
- So be it!... It's not enough that she is wearing my breeches...
she has to throw them on my head!!

In other words, despite its gentle humor and artful compositions Les Bas Bleus by Daumier is staunchly anti-feminist. Though they never signed it literary ladies upset the social contract. Womens rights is a zero-sum game; when women gain, men lose. Vive le difference, death to equality.

May I come in my dear, or are you still collaborating with Monsieur?

Daumier was not inclined to depict women as traditionally beautiful creatures to begin with; his eyes were jaundiced. Comparing Daumier with his contemporary, Gavarni, Ray continued:

Ever since Virginie obtained the seventh honorable mention
for poetry at the Académie Française, I, a captain of the
National Guard, am supposed to count the sheets for the laundry
every Saturday. If I don't do it , my wife will wash my head...

"If Daumier could not draw a pretty woman, as is sometimes alleged, Gavarni at this period could hardly draw an ugly one" (The Art of the French Illustrated Book, pp 220-221).

- The artist captured me as I was writing my melancholic book
entitled "Sorrows of my soul." The eyes came out quite well but
the nose is not sorrowful enough!...
- (Man, sotto voce) - No... it is just in a sorry state...

If Daumier can be blamed for this pointed visual social satire, his publisher, Charles Philipon, may be responsible for each plate's verbal sally. Daumier had collaborated with Philipon when creating political satire for Philipon's notorious La Caricature, Philipon often suggesting the subject/theme and writing the caption.

- Devilish brat! Why don't you let me compose in peace
my ode on the happiness of maternity!
- All right, all right...... he is going to be quiet.....
I am going to give him a good whipping in the other room.
(aside): from looking at what my wife is writing in her work,
it is she who makes the most noise of all.

When, after La Caricature shuttered, Philipon established Le Charivari, Daumier joined him in this journal of social satire, whence Les Bas Bleus originally appeared as a serial. Their previous collaborative formula may have continued: Philipon writing the jokes, Daumier visualizing them.

(Collaborations between caricaturists and publishers were not unusual at all. Twenty-five years before Les Bas Bleus was published British caricaturist George Cruikshank and publisher-bookseller William Hone often collaborated on political satires. Publishers had their eye on current social and political events, chose topical subjects that they thought would appeal to the public, and called upon an artist to realize the caricature).

Hell and damnation! hissed!... whistled!... booed!

It would be interesting to know what Marie-Françoise Aubert, wife of printing house Chez Aubert proprietor Gabriel Aubert, and sister of Charles Philipon (who set the couple up in business in order to handle the printing of his magazines and lithographs), thought of Daumier's (and her brother's) attitude about women. Hers was the brain that managed Chez Aubert to prosperity. Perhaps successful business women were accorded respect that bluestockings, with their heads in the air within books, were denied.

This is an extremely rare book. OCLC records on one copy of Les Bas Bleus in institutional holdings worldwide, not, incredibly, at the BNF, but, rather, at the Morgan Library, and it has never been at auction since ABPC began recording results in 1923. 

As for the ladies of France taking on literary airs blame it on Georges Sand, a baleful influence on contemporary womanhood and generations of women to come. Next thing you know, they'll be a female Secretary of State of the U.S.A. French fries? Non! Freedom fries? Non, non!! Fuggetaboutit fries? Oui!

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DAUMIER, Honoré.  Les Bas Bleus. Paris: Chez Aubert, 1844.

First edition. Tall quarto (13 1/2 x 10 3/8 in; 341 x 262 mm). Forty hand-colored lithographed plates.  Lith. by Imp. Aubert.

Ray, The Art of the French Illustrated Book 169. Daumier Register 1221 - 1260.
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Caption translations from the French by The Daumier Register.

The Daumier Register needs your help.
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Images courtesy of David Brass Rare Books, with our thanks.
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Of related interest:

Scarce Daumier Childrens Books at Daumier Register.

Tonight On "The Bachelor": Daumier's Single Man.

A Rare Suite of Pre-Political Lithographs By Charles Philipon Surfaces.
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The Rare and Exquisite $30,000-$50,000 Flower Seed Catalogue

by Stephen J. Gertz

April.

A very attractive copy of Robert Furber's classic, Twelve Months of Flowers (1730), comes to auction at Bonham's-New York Fine Books and Manuscripts sale, October 10, 2011. It is estimated to sell for $30,000-$50,000.

It's a glorified seed catalogue, and glorious it is.

August.

Furber's intent was "to make the Love of Gardening more general, and the understanding of it more easy, I have from time to time published Catalogues, containing large Variety of Trees, Plants, Fruits, and Flowers, both Foreign and Domestic, cultivated by me for Sale" (Short Introduction to Gardening). The flowers were grouped into bouquets according to the month they bloomed, and referenced with numbers and captions so that Furber's customers could order particular specimens. In this regard, the publication follows in the tradition of Emanuel Sweert's Florilegium (1612-1614), a similarly elaborate sale catalogue.

Furber spared no expense, commissioning the celebrated Antwerp-born painter Pieter Casteels and the skilled engraver Henry Fletcher. The illustrations transcended their original commercial purpose and were reprinted throughout the 18th century to capitalize on their decorative appeal.

December.

"In the years 1730 and 1732, there appeared two extremely important series of plates, both published by Robert Furber, a nurseryman in Kensington, then outside of London. One series is entitled, Twelve Months of Flowers and the other, Twelve Months of Fruit. These are sales catalogues in the grand manner, consisting of arrangements of flowers or fruits according to the months in which they bloom or ripen. Each flower or fruit bears a small number and its name is to be found by referring to a the key at the bottom of the plate. From these prints patrons actually ordered their new plant material.

February.

"These plates were engraved by Fletcher after drawings by Casteels, a Flemish painter who had settled in London, and were 'colored to the life,' as Furber tells us. In all, some four hundred flowers are depicted and three hundred and sixty-four kinds of fruit. The catalogues of twelve plates, one for each month, were issued without texts. In the case of Twelve Months of Flowers, a list of the four hundred and fifty subscribers was engraved within a delightful floral border of the favorite flowers…

January.

"This catalogue was so well received that in 1732 Furber issued a volume, quarto in size, entitled The Flower Garden Displayed…

March.

"Furber's customers evidently had encountered the same difficulties which have defeated the efforts of the succeeding generations of gardeners to grow flowers like the pictures in the catalogue...

October.

"That the decorative quality of Twelve Months of Flowers was fully appreciated, it is proved by the fact that six different publishers in the 1740s and 1750s offered copies of the plates which could no longer have served the purpose of a nurseryman's catalogue. These were re-engraved in reverse on a slightly smaller scale with the addition of butterflies, caterpillars and other insects which in many cases over-crowded the composition" (Dunthorne, Gordon. Flower & Fruit Prints of the 18th and 19th Centuries, pp. 12-15). 

The last three copies complete with the subscriber's list to fall under the hammer fetched $30,000 (Pacific, April 1, 2010, lot 398, two plates torn);  $47,500 (the Michale Kuse copy, Sotheby's New York, June 20, 2003, lot 12); and $100,100 (Christie's, Nov 28, 2001, lot 27).

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FURBER, Robert (c.1674-1756). Twelve Months of Flowers. Kensington: Robert Furber, 1730. First edition. Broadsheets (sheets mostly 430 x 330 mm). Engraved leaf of subscribers (585 x 460 mm) including title and dedication all within pictorial border of tulips, irises, carnations and other blooms, Twelve finely hand-colored engraved plates by Henry Fletcher after Pieter Casteels (1684-1740) All but November laid down. 

Dunthorne 115. BMNH II, 632.  Henrey 734. Nissen 675.

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Images courtesy of Bonham's, with our thanks.
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The Wikipedia entry for Pieter Casteels claims that a copy of Twelve Months of Flowers sold at Christie's on May 25, 2005 for $1,640,000. Neither Christie's nor ABPC have a record of that sale or price at any date.

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Our Lady of the Bookshop, 1782

 Beauty in Search of Knowledge
London: Printed for R. Sayer & J. Bennett 30th Decr. 1782.
Single sheet mezzotint hand-colored in gouache.
Artist unknown.

It's a story not found in any collection of classic fairy tales. Forget the beast, this is Beauty and the Bookshop.

One of the most attractive and informative illustrations of an eighteenth century bookshop, Beauty in Search of Knowledge serves as a keen reminder that going to a bookshop - many of the period doubling as  circulating libraries - was the place to go to cultivate one's mind; it was the smart thing to do. It still is.

"Circulating libraries were privately run, usually by booksellers or publishers and were a primary outlet for much of the popular fiction of the period and were often viewed with suspicion by the church and with some snobbery by the literati. This separately-issued print, in the popular ‘posture’ format and its provocative title, is clearly not without a degree of satire;" the idea that a woman could be as intelligent as a man was, at the time (and for far too long afterward), something of a joke, and their education beyond domestic skills and arts considered something of a royal waste of time. Women who spent too much time with books were considered oddballs sabotaging their marriage prospects. No man wants a brain in bed with them. Unless, of course, the man is smart enough to not be intimidated; beauty and brains make for a very alluring woman, and our Lady of the Bookshop clearly has sex appeal.

The shelves in the window are filled with an attractive and tempting selection of books of various sizes, in bindings in various formats, and small and large prints; the typical stock of a contemporary book shop. Our fashionably dressed Beauty holds in her left hand what appears to be an octavo volume bound in red leather with gilt tooled borders. The lady has fine taste.

The print is fairly common. Yet this example is most certainly not: the fine quality of the mezzotint and the contemporary hand-coloring in gouache make this one very special. Most in private and institutional collections are uncolored or, if so, executed in dull, muted tones. You will likely never see another so vivid, fresh, and attractive.

In this world of Internet dating, where success is dependent upon a n optimistic click of the mouse, let us not forget that book shops and libraries are great pick-up spots for intelligent, book-loving people seeking same. They beat bars and the produce section of a supermarket. We will gloss over shenanigans in the stacks. Who knows, perhaps our beauty, with such a coy, knowing smile, is preparing for an assignation - a Booktryst - with a paramour?

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Image courtesy of Justin Croft Antiquarian Books. Quoted text from the Croft catalog description.
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Tonight On "The Bachelor": Daumier's Single Man

Previously on The Bachelor: In an unprecedented twist, M. Coquelet, our current little rooster, eliminated every eligible special someone. Though successful, sincere, emotionally secure, educated and accomplished, impressive, attractive and alluring, appropriately desperate (yet not suicidal), Britney, Tabitha, Amanda, Helene, Jennifer, Kristen, Brooke, Jessica, Tara, Sarah, Sadie, Tessa, Chelsea, Molly, and Vienna were each given their walking papers and left a trail of tears as the final credits rolled, each withheld rose a slap in the face.

There's just no pleasing some men.

And so in this episode of The Bachelor we follow M. Coquelet, smug and satisfied in his narrow little world, all alone with his pets, following his arid routine, and denying the loneliness that rises up when his guard is down.

It's boring television but the producers have put together a commemorative album to chronicle this sad affair of a man too stupid to know how empty his life is and blind to the solution just a single, long-stemmed rose away.

Presenting:

Plate One. 7 HEURES DU MATIN. Réveil de Mr. Coquelet. 

Minette et Azor se disputent le baiser paternel 

Mr. Coquelet souris à cette touchante rivalité. 

(Seven in the morning. Mr. Cockerel's Alarm Clock: 

Minette and Azor dispute Mr. Cockerel's paternal kiss as if rivals for a mouse).

La Journée du Célibataire (A Day in the Life of a Bachelor), a series of twelve lithographs by Honoré Daumier that originally appeared in Le Charivari between April 14 and September 15, 1839. (The pioneering days of early T.V.)

Plate Two. 8 HEURES DU MATIN. (Le ménage). Le spectacle de la nature
élève l'ame! M. Coquelet pour se délasser des soins du ménage, 
vient chercher à sa fenêtre le parfum des fleurs 
et le chant du.... serins. 

(Eight in the morning. ((Housekeeping). The spectacle of nature
elevates the soul! Mr. Cockerel relaxes in the household, 
just look at his window the scent of flowers 

and the song .... canaries.)

The series was soon published in black and white in a separate album offered for twelve Francs and in color for eighteen Francs. The album was printed by Chez Aubert and edited by print-seller  Chez Bauger, Paris, and advertised in Le Charivari on November 5, 1839.

Plate Three. Monsieur Coquelet resté célibataire par égoïsme partage 

son frugal déjeuner avec Azor et Minette. 

(Mr Cockerel remained in single selfishness, 

sharing his frugal lunch with Azor and Minette.)

There are no copies noted in OCLC or KVK. It is considered to be quite rare.

Plate Four. 10 HEURES DU MATIN. Mr. Coquelet ayant rencontré au jardin des 

Plantes Mlle Palissandre à laquelle il eût le bonheur d'offrir une rose 
pompon le 1er mai 1804, a obtenu un rendez vous, et s'etant mis en frais 
d'une paire de gantsa 29 sous, il jette un coup d'oeil à 
son miroir avant d'aller en bonne fortune. 

(Ten in the morning. Mr. Cockerel, having met Miss Rosewood at the 

Jardin des Plantes when he had the pleasure to offer a pink pompom 

on 1 May 1804, obtained an appointment, and takes pains to don a pair 

of gloves. He throws a glance in the mirror before going to good fortune.)

"Daumier is showing us the day and activities of a bachelor, in this case of Monsieur Coquelet. It starts with his waking up at seven in the morning and ends at 9 in the evening when he goes to bed...

Plate Five. 11 HEURES DU MATIN. Mr. Coquelet voulant offrir un bouquet 

de violette à Mlle. Palissandre, se reproche cette prodigalite: et lavant son 

mouchoir de ses propres mains, il rassure sa conscience au moyen de 

cette économie. 

(Eleven in the morning. Mr. Cockerel, wanting to offer a bunch of violets 

to Ms. Rosewood, blames himself for this extravagance and, washing his 

hands with his handkerchief,  he reassures his conscience through this economy.)

"Daumier had some experience with bachelorhood himself, since he married the seamstress Alexandrine Dassy only at the age of 31. In contrast to his fictitious personality, Monsieur Coquelet, he had however decided for marriage, while Coquelet lived a life of stinginess and loneliness, diligently avoiding any permanent relationship.

Plate Six. Sans doute Mr. Riflot le droit de pétition est sacré; mais on en abuse! 

témoin celle dont vous nous parlez: imposer les célibataires comme inutiles à 

la population ! j'en suis faché pour les gens mariés; mais s'il faut le dire il n'

en est aucun qui, plus que moi Coquelet, ait aidé à la population. 

(Doubtless Mr. Riflot, the right of petition is sacred, but it is abused! 

Witness what you mention: the unmarried as imposing unnecessarily 
to the population! I'm sorry for married people but none have done more than 
I, Cockerel, to keep the population down.)

"Daumier not only chastises the loneliness of his bachelor's existence but even more so his avarice and makes him appear ridiculous in his exaggerated affection for his pets, usually an over-fed dog, cat, canary or occasionally a plant on the window sill. With a somewhat melancholy smile, the reader recognizes these insufficient substitutes for real love and partnership and the waste led by a life diligently governed by a daily routine which starts at 7 in the morning and ends at 9 at night, leaving no room for personal deployment and deplores the waste of precious time" (Daumier Registry).

Plate Seven. UNE HEURE. Promenade au Luxembourg. Va gredin, 
avale z'en! tu verras ce que c'est que d'être jeté à l'eau 
par un p...p...p...pol...is...son comme toi!! 

(One in the afternoon. Walking in Luxembourg. Go Rogue, 
swallows mucha! You'll see what it's like to be thrown into the water 
by a p. .. p. .. p. .. pol ... is ... its like you!)

Plate Eight. 2 HEURES. Le gouter d'azor. Que voulez vous, mon cher: 

cette bête n'a que moi, vous, vous avez tout le monde. 

(Two in the afternoon. The taste of Azor. What do you want, my dear: 

this beast has only me; you, you have everybody.)

Plate Nine. TROIS HEURES. Monsieur Coquelet à la police correctionnelle, a

dmire cette institution qui met à l'abri des audacieuses entreprises d'êtres corrompus. 

(Three in the afternoon. Mr Cockerel, in the police court, admires 

the institution that protects from aggressive firms becoming corrupt).

Plate Ten. 5 HEURES DU SOIR. Mr. Coquelet vous êtes un être insociable: 

vous vous entendez avec votre chien; voila deux fois que j'en ai 149, 

il saute sur la table et il brouille tout. Votre chien est un compère!... 

et vous un vieux tricheur. 

(Five in the evening. Mr. Cockerel you're an unsociable being: 

you hear with your dog voila twice that I have 149, 

he jumps on the table and it confuses everything. Your dog is a gossip! ... 

and you an old cheater).

Plate eleven sees Coquelet at seven in the evening walking home. He meets a friend who tells him.... "A word! My dear, in all honor, a neighbor, 45 years, pleasant little widow, and the heart has nothing to do ....)." Coquelet keeps walking.

Plate twelve ends M. Coquelet's day at nine at night. "Mr. Cockerel extinguishes the light on a day that ends like the day before and  traces the exact picture of the single life!"

But, alas, M. Coquelet sleeps uneasily. His dreams take him to that dark place that awaits the old and alone, and, once secure in his prison of freedom, he is now experiencing a nightmare of loneliness and despair, no one to care for him, no one to love and be loved by. And, a single man has a lower life expectancy! Horreur! Terreur! Mon Dieu! Day breaks, and M. Coquelet understands the folly of his bachelor ways:

"I could have had Betty. I could have had Carole. 

Instead, I'm trapped in a ménage à trois from hell with me, myself, and I!

I made my bed and now I have to sleep in it, solitary in a fool's paradise!
Damn you to hell, Daumier! Damn you to hell!"

And so ends this episode of The Bachelor. 

•••

Next week on The Bachelor: Brad, a precocious lil' satyr from Covina, California, plays the Pan pipes to a bevy of fine lil' dogies culled from a recent cattle call.

 Eligible, buff, and stylish. Yet unemployed. Who'll be the lucky lady?

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DAUMIER, Honoré. La Journee du Celibataire. [Paris: Aubert & Cie, 1839].

First issue. Folio. Twelve  hand-colored lithograph plates, 13 5/8 x 10 7/16 in., (348 x 266 mm.), plate; 9 7/8 x 7 3/4 in. (250 x 197 mm.), image, heightened with gum arabic. Three edges gilt.

Daumier Registry 607-618.
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Daumier images courtesy of David Brass.
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