Kids Give Dog A Colonic, And Other Childhood Amusements In 1824

by Stephen J. Gertz

The Remedy. (Aubry).

Kids Do The Darnedest Things:

It's France's Funniest Home Videos, nineteenth century edition, capturing, in hand-colored stills, those precious cinema verité moments when kids will be kids and memories are forever imprinted on the heart.

Particularly on the heart of a dog being given an involuntary clyster in der keister with a syringe that could pass for a cruise missile.

It's one of six lithographs in Jeux de l'enfance [Childhood Games] by Charles Aubry, a color-plate album printed and published in Paris by François Seraphin Delpech (1778-1825), the great, early French lithographer, in 1824.

The Little Smoker. (Aubry).

Poor children. With Le Gulp Grande banned in Paris by an ancestor of New York's Mayor Bloomberg concerned with 19th century childhood obesity, opportunities to mimic dangerous adult behavior have dwindled, leaving smoking as one of the last bad adult habits for kids to engage in. The leader is a cool little hipster drummer boy; leave it to a musician to corrupt those around him. We do not see, however, the rib-tickling denouement to this scene, when Junior on the left and the girl at right get sick and toss their cookies.

The Paper-Curlers. (Aubry).

After enduring a colon-cleansing and now, presumably, purified of toxins, it's time for Fido's trip to the beauty salon. He doesn't look any happier than when he was fundamentally invaded, and we get a hint of how this tableau will play out as little Jane employs the curling iron and curling papers, a friend rapturously looking on while Fido nears feral, gives the little boy a look to kill and the kid understands to his horror that his nose will soon be Alpo.

The Pioneer's Beard. (Aubry).

Boo! Imitating ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons or Rasputin the Mad Monk is always a sure-fire laff-riot. The girl in the middle is cooly faux-frightened but the bejesus is clearly scared out of her companion at left. It's not, in and of itself, material for France's Funniest Home Videos but it has something extra that levitates above the banal: the poor dog at lower right appears to be suffering from them way down home, 'gainst my will, high-colonic blues.

The Flick. (Aubry).

Revenge of the Girls! While Dennis Le Menace sleeps, his sisters torment him, the youngest gently flicking his cheek to annoy without actually rousing him. Moments later, however, he awakes with a start and bladder accident. That's entertainment!

The Little Actors. (Aubry).

There's an interesting political subtext to the above plate with young boy being dressed-up as the king with pillow to allow for the monarch's girth: Jeux de l'enfance was published in 1824 and on September 16 of that year, Louis XVIII, the rotund progressive who reigned in post-Napoleon, Bourbon Restoration France, died, and Charles X, a hard-core reactionary, assumed the throne. He was not well-liked and in short order had censorship laws passed amongst other regressive and unpopular legislation; he was forced to abdicate in the July (Second) Revolution of 1830. Jeux de l'enfance by Aubry first appears in the Bibliographie de la France in its January 8, 1825 issue, as no. 41 in the Gravures section. The children are celebrating a popular and recently deceased king at the expense of the new king, Charles X. Aubry was playing with fire; such sentiments would soon become dangerous to publicly express.

Artist Charles Aubry made his reputation with hunting scenes and military  subjects. In  1822  he  accepted  the post of  professor of  art at l'Ecole Militaire de  Saumur.  That's about all that's readily available about the man. Note that he taught art in a military academy, an unlikely salon. But this is France and what's wrong with art appreciation for warriors? It's dash and élan du soldat, my friends, dash and élan. With paintbrush.

Grandmother's Bonnet. (Boilly).

This particular copy of Jeux de l'enfance is part of a collection album that includes prints by J.F. Scheffert, and two lithographs by Louis Leopold Boilly, the Boilly prints likely added to the album because they cover the same territory as Jeux..., albeit the scenes less aggressive than Aubry's views, Boilly's placid dog spared the humiliating depredations of Aubry's prepubescent juvenile delinquents gleefully engaged in mischievous play.

Grandfather's Wig. (Boilly).

Boilly's children, in contrast, enjoy completely innocent activity, scenes so charming that they will not be finalists in this week's episode of France's Funniest Home Videos. They lack that certain something, that je ne sais cruel slapstick that inspires peals of laughter rather than pleasant smiles that warm the heart but cool the ratings. In the above tableau, for instance, unless the bewigged little girl subsequently slips on a banana peel, does a header into the air, lands on Grandfather's top hat, then smites her brother with Grandfather's cane, where's the side-splitting guffaw?

On its own, Jeux de l'enfance is an insanely scarce book with only one copy in institutional holdings worldwide, at the Morgan Library. The Bibliothéque National has a set of the prints bound within a collection album.

I am aware of another album containing Jeux de l'enfance bound with the two Boilly lithographs, it, as well as the Aubry-Scheffer-Boilly album under notice, in a contemporary binding likely issued by Delpech to move unsold prints, a tactic routinely and successfully employed by Delpech's successor, Chez Aubert, the esteemed Parisian printing and publishing house owned by caricaturist, journalist and famed publisher of political and social satire (with a stable of artists that constitute the golden age of French caricature), Charles Philipon,  and operated under the nominal stewardship of his brother-in-law, Gabriel Aubert, and his wife, Philipon's sister, Marie-Françoise, the management brain, it appears, in the business.

___________

AUBRY, Charles and BOILLY, Louis Leopold. Jeux de l'enfance. Paris: Delpech, 1824. First (only) edition. Folio. Eight hand-colored lithographs, six in series by Aubry, two out of series by Boilly.

___________

Images courtesy of David Brass Rare Books, with our thanks.
___________
___________

"Read, And Be Wise - Come, Read and Learn"

by Stephen J. Gertz

A scarce, early American abecedaire (ABC book) in battledore format has come into the marketplace. The Uncle's Present, A New Battledore, featuring "Cries" - street vendors who verbally announced their wares for sale - was issued out of Philadelphia in 1810. With cover woodcuts attributed to W. Mason and A. Anderson, it heralds "Read, and Be Wise" along the top cover's upper margin, and "Come, read and learn" along its flap. 

Within, twenty-four letters of the alphabet are illustrated with charming woodcuts depicting English Criers, including: a bookseller of almanacks, a broomseller, milkmaid, chicken-seller, a print (image) seller, lobster-seller, etc. "The Cries illustrating the alphabet are a very pretty set, and are probably an early set of Newcastle or York Cries by [Thomas] Bewick...The letteres J and U are omitted to have 24 letters in 24 compartments" (Rosenbach).

Unusual for battledores, an extra leaf is present featuring each woodcut for all the letters.

Battledores were popular reading aids for children in mid- to late eighteenth century grammar schools. With their emphasis on learning the alphabet in an entertaining and illustrated format, their popularity with children was enhanced by the form's secondary purpose: outside of the classroom the stiffcard booklet was used as a paddle to play an early version of badminton, battledore and shuttlecock. 

The Uncle's Present is scarce, with OCLC noting only five copies in institutional collections worldwide. A facsimile was reprinted in 1964.

__________

[BATTLEDORE]. The Uncle's Present. A New Battledore. Philadelphia: Published by Jacob Johnson, Sold by Benjamin Warner, n.d. [c. 1810]. First edition. Octavo (6 1/2 x 3 3/4 inches). Four leaves. Twenty-four woodcuts in twenty-four compartments. Brown pictorial stiffcard wrappers.

Welch 1363. Rosenbach 428.

__________

Images courtesy of Aleph-Bet Books, with our thanks.
__________
__________

The Bauhaus Bird Paradise of Carl Ernst Hinkefuss

by Stephen J. Gertz

In 1929, graphic designer Carl Ernst Hinkefuss (1881-1970) published, Mein Vogel Paradies (My Bird Paradise), a tie-bound modern block book for children featuring stunning color lithographs depicting abstracted forms of birds reduced to their fundamental forms, accompanied by verse about each individual bird, both text (printed in silver ink) and images printed on black paper. A two-page introduction by Hinkefuss encourages children to create their own pictures based upon his simple designs.

Carl Ernst Hinkefuss was a popular Bauhaus illustrator known for modernist graphic design work that integrated art with commercial values. He did a great deal of advertising design for Hamburg Amerika oceanliners. Hinkefuss was also the editor of the design periodical Qualität, 1920-1932.

He "trained as a painter, graphic artist, and architect at the Königliche Kunstschule and the Kunstgewerbemuseum in Berlin at the turn of the century. While still a student, Hinkefuss became interested in the idea of artists collaborating with the business world, and after graduation he became a commercial graphic designer. From 1905 to early 1910, he worked in the advertising and publicity departments of several firms in Berlin and Dessau, and then later in 1910 set out as an independent publicist in Berlin" (Online Archive of California). 

He ultimately partnered with Wilhelm Deffke (1887-1950) in Wilhemwerk, their commercial design house.

Prospectus for Mein Vogel Paradies, 1929.

According to the prospectus for the book, it was produced using a fifteen color offset-lithography process. The prospectus also mentions a gift box but, apparently, it was never produced; no copies in a publisher's gift box have ever been seen.

Mein Vogel Paradies is an extremely rare book. OCLC/KVK note only four copies in institutional holdings worldwide. According to the ABPC Index, 1923-2011, no copies have ever come to auction. Fine copies, if you can find them, now sell in the low five figures.

__________

HINKEFUSS, Carl Ernst. Mein Vogel Paradies. Gesamtwerk von Karl Ernst Hinkefuss. [Berlin: Verlag International GMBH / Internationale Propaganda für Qualitatserzeugnisse], 1929. First edition, limited to 1500 copies signed by the artist. Quarto (11 5/8 x 8 1/4 in.). [14]  leaves on black paper printed in silver and fourteen other colors. Color lithographs. Color pictorial wrappers side-stitched with black string.

__________

Book images courtesy of Aleph-Bet Books, with our thanks.

Image of prospectus courtesy of Wilhelmwerke, with our appreciation.
__________
__________