You Are The Objects Of Your Trade: Personification Prints

by Stephen j. Gertz

George Spratt and George E. Madeley, China.

You are what you eat, you are what you do.

In 1830 - 1833, George Spratt, an English artist, and George E. Madeley, an English engraver and printmaker, produced a series of lithographed satiric designs of tradesmen composed of the objects of their profession. They were published by Charles Tilt, a London book and print seller.

"China," is found in Purcell's Lithographic Drawing Book, published by Tilt in 1831. It depicts a man smoking a pipe, his body a collection of plates, containers, dishes, bowls, cups, saucers, and vases, with his hand as a teapot.

Spratt and Madeley, Crockery.

"Crockery," which pictures a woman made up of jugs, ewers, plates, teapot, and sauce boats, is also from Purcell's Lithographic Drawing Book.

The "Fruiterer" appears in Spratt and Madeley's Figures of Fun (1833). Here, a woman is depicted as a collection of grapes, melons, lemon, plums, cherries and strawberries.

Spratt and Madeley, The Fruiterer.

Each print is extremely rare, taken from books that have become excessively scare in all likelihood because they were broken up early on to individually sell the plates. Not a trace of Purcell's Lithographic Drawing Book is to be found in any library worldwide, nor is it recorded in any of the standard or unusual references. The only evidence for its existence is publisher Charles Tilt's advertisement for the book at the rear of Landscape Illustrations of the Waverly Novels (London 1831).

Of Figures of Fun, only a handful of copies have been accounted for, nearly all incomplete. Gumulchain, in the only reference that we have found for the book, describes it as "so rare that this is the only complete copy... that has come to our notice. The work is inspired by 17th century French engravings done in the same spirit."

Arcimboldo, The Librarian.

Yet in the sixteenth century Italian painter Giuseppe Arcimboldo (1527-1593) represented the human form with inanimate objects, some of which included tradesmen.

L'Armessin, Habit de Paticier (Dress of the confectioner).

In 1695, designer and engraver Nicolas de L'Armessin II's (1638-1694) Costumes Grotesques was published. A series of fantastic plates in which workers and professionals were depicted with the tools and objects of their trade as body parts, it is the work that Gumulchain refers to.

Martin Englebrecht, Un Chapetier (A Hatter).

In 1730 Martin Engelbrecht published Assemblage nouveau des manouvries habilles, a series of dessins humoristiques prints inspired by l'Armessin's.

And so with Spratt and Madeley we have England's answer to those earlier examples, all collectively known as "personification prints": the objects of trade assembled to create a personification of the trade. George Spratt and George E. Madeley had, earlier, in 1830, produced  prints in this genre, i.e. The Itinerant Apothecary. 

Spratt and Madeley, The Itinerant Apothecary.

 Medeley was a British artist and lithographer active 1826-1854.  Spratt was a British illustrator and surgeon-accoucheur (male midwife), active as an artist 1830-1833, whose Obstetrical Tables (1830) was noteworthy for his use of multiple super-imposed sheets of paper to create a anatomical pop-up effect not unlike that used by Vesalius in 1538.

Publisher Charles Tilt (1797-1861), active 1826-1840, was an English bookseller who appears to have specialized in publishing satiric and humorous prints. He issued the satiric caricatures of Henry Heath, and co-published Le Pointevin's classic, Les Diables de Lithographies (1832).

The Spratt and Madeley prints are not unusual to find as modern glicé prints. They are quite scarce, however, in their original lithographic form.

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[SPRATT. G, artist]. Three Hand-Colored Personification Plates. From Purcell's Lithographic Drawing Book: "Crockery," and "China;" and from Figures of Fun: "Fruiterer." London: Charles Tilt, 1831 / 1833. Designed by George Spratt and printed by George E. Madeley.

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Spratt images courtesy of David Brass Rare Books, with our thanks.

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A Grand Rip-Off Of Grandville's Metamophoses Du Jour

by Stephen J. Gertz

In 1828-29, J.J. Grandville, (1803-1847), one of the most celebrated caricaturists of his era, published Les Metamorphoses du jour, a satire of the French bourgeoisie in which he depicted humans whose character was revealed by possessing the heads of beasts, with satiric captions to each lithographed plate. Extremely popular in its initial issue, it is amongst the rarest of all color-plate books.

It was so popular that within a very short time afterward two imitation editions were released by competing publishers in 1828, both designed by the same anonymous artist, Hippolyte Jean-Baptiste Garnerey. One of them, La Métempsycose réalisée (The Mental Metamorphoses Realized), recently passed through my hands.

La Métempsycose réalisée, containing twenty hand-colored lithographed plates, is even rarer than Les Metamorphoses du jour. Exceptionally scarce, with no copies recorded by OCLC/KVK in institutional holdings worldwide  and none at auction, according to ABPC, since at least 1928, it appears that most copies were broken up at an early date to individually sell the lithographs. Generally unknown and scarcely seen, these plates make their Internet (and likely everywhere else) debut on Booktryst.

Garnerey's second album of Grandville imitations is the equally scarce La Petite ménagerie (Paris, Piaget, s.d. [1828-1829]). Grandville bitterly complained about both the albums; they were so obviously and blatantly copycats of his work, down to Garnerey signing only his initial, "G," to some of the plates, which only added to the confusion and what was surely an effort by the publishers (Brussels: Chez Daems / Paris: Chez Méant) meant to deceive the public.

"Les Métamorphoses du jour ont, des leur apparition, provoqué de la part d'autres artistes des imitations, dont Grandville ne manqua pas de se plaindre. V. la planche 33 du recueil de 1829 qui porte cette légende: Il est assez de geais à  deux pieds comme lui... Grandville y fait allusion aux deux albums que publiait, ds 1828, Hippolyte Garnerey et qui sont les suivants: 1 La Metamorphoses réalisée, 20 planches lthographiées; les unes signées G..., la plupart non signées; les 10 premières planches portent l'adresse sivante: A Bruxelles chez Daems et à Oaris chez Meant fils, rue St-Antoine, no. 9. les pl. 11 à 20: A Paris,  chez Genty, éditeur, rue St-Jacques, no. 22 [1828-1829]" (Vicaire).

Little is known about Hippolyte Jean-Baptiste Garnerey (1787-1858) beyond that he was a French watercolor painter, engraver, and lithographer who debuted at the Salon in 1831. 

Grandville established the anthropomorphic human menagerie genre of caricature; Garnerey reinforced it.  In 1851, artist Amédée Varin (1818-1883) further explored the genre with L'Empire des Légumes aka Drôleries végétales; people as vegetables. The following year Varin illustrated Les Papillons Métamorphoses Terrestres des Peuples de l'Air; people as butterflies. These were not, however,  satires; Varin was a fantasist. 

Of Grandville's Les Metamorphoses du jour, Gordon N. Ray, whose The Art of the Illustrated Book In France 1700-1914 is the key reference, wrote, "This famous album, which established Grandville's early stye of bitter burlesque, has become rare. Indeed, it is known to many of his admirers only through the greatly inferior album of seventy wood-engraved reproductions published by Harvard in 1854… Lust, gluttony, anger, and the other deadly sins are stigmatized, now with the blow of a hammer, now with the thrust of a stiletto; while the foibles and humors of mankind also receive due attention. Throughout the series Grandville's choice of beast-heads is inspired; and the force of his conceptions and the wit of his captions rarely falter. Occasionally, he produces a design of universal application that calls Goya to mind, as in the bat and owl creatures bewildered by the sunshine of 'The light that hurts them' (no. 12). Perhaps his most terrifying plate is 'Ménagerie (no. 67), which shows four prison cells. In the first are complacent commercial offenders, enjoying all the comforts of home; in the second violent criminals, sly or stupid; in the third murderers, one with a countenance of the utmost ferocity; in the forth, political prisoners, quiet and despondent…Granville turned to direct political satire in his final plates, but the publication of his onslaughts on church ('Famille des scarabées' no. 72) and state ('Une bête féroce,' no. 73) was not permitted in France" (Ray).

The difference in artistic execution between Grandville and Garnerey is slim; Garnerey was a master imitator. What distinguishes the two are the captions. Grandville was sharp and had bite; Garnerey, while not completely dull, could have used a whet-stone to hone his captions to a finer edge. Yet his captions possess a pleasant charm and the Bibliothéque National possesses a copy of Grandville bound with the two Garnereys; companion pieces in counterpoint,

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[GARNEREY, Hippolyte Jean-Baptiste]. La Métempsycose réalisée. Brussels: Chez Daems / Paris: Chez Méant, 1828.

First edition. Oblong folio (9 7/8 x 13 7/8 ini; 250 x 352 mm). Twenty hand-colored stub-mounted lithographed plates in the style of Granville's Les Métamorphoses du jour. Lithography by Gobert et Cie. 

Vicaire V, col. 788.

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

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Virtue For Girls In The American Toilet

by Stephen J. Gertz

"Children's books joined the crusade against the prevailing 'pride and affectation in dress,' and little girls in particular were regaled with alarming examples to prove that 'prettiness is an injury to a young lady, if her behaviour is not pretty likewise'" (Kiefer, American Children Through Their Books 1700-1835, p. 94).

In 1827 a curious little book was published in New York. The anonymously written The American Toilet - a title that refers to the rituals of daily grooming and dressing, and the items used to do so - was one of the many early books for children issued to instruct them on the path to adulthood and righteousness. The book's emblematic illustrations were accompanied by moral precepts. It is one amongst the genre known as "conduct books" for children.

At this stage in their development all children's books were didactic in nature, and while great for the parents were dry and deadly to the children compelled read them. Fun was not a part of these books; fun, indeed, was frowned upon and not part of a child's education. Childhood as we now understand it did not exist.  In those days childhood was adulthood with baby teeth.

Modesty, humility, cheerfulness, mildness, truth, contentment, good humor, innocence, compassionate tears, moderation, industry, perseverance, benevolence, fidelity, meekness, charity,  circumspection, discretion, piety, and regularity. These are the virtues that young girls in eighteenth and nineteenth century America were expected to cultivate. They are the virtues that many in modern America believe have gone into the toilet and down the drain. They are the virtues taught in The American Toilet. Conspicuously absent are the dubious modern virtues of gettin' jiggy and workin' your twerk.

The book illustrates various toilet articles, each accompanied by a couplet. 

"Touch with this compound the soft lily cheek / And the bright glow will best its virtue speak," reads the verse for Genuine Rouge. The lesson is bared when a hinged flap on the illustration is raised to expose the virtue. "Genuine rouge" is revealed to be not a cosmetic but modesty.

Book collectors familiar with the genre will recognize the format as a movable or transformation book, and an early one, the simplest then imagined, produced, and published, a "flap-book." It is quite possibly the first produced in America. This added a novel and fun aspect to learning virtues, noticeably absent from other conduct books. Of further interest to collectors is that The American Toilet is amongst the earliest color-plate books published in America to employ lithographs original to the United States, here hand-colored.

Lithography was developed in Europe and during the early nineteenth century all printers skilled in the process were British, French, or German. With few exceptions all early American color-plate books were reprints or piracies of British editions; there were simply no native-born American printers with the necessary skill set at this early point in the century. The plates/stones were imported; the books printed in the U.S. The lithographs in The American Toilet were, in contrast, made in New York by one of the few printer-publishers in the U.S. with the technical know-how to produce them, Imbert's Lithographic Office, a pioneer firm.

"Anthony Imbert, originally a French naval officer, learned lithography while a prisoner of war in England. He arrived in New York about 1825 and immediately undertook a series of illustrations for a Memoir published to celebrate the completion of the Erie Canal. His other work includes a series of New York views, portraits, and cartoons. He is last listed in the New York city directory in 1835, and he died sometime before 1838, when his widow Mary is listed selling boys' clothing on Canal Street" (Connecticut Historical Society Museum and Library).

Advertisement for Imbert in NY American For The Country, January, 1827.

"The American Toilet, a neat little production, sold for account
of a charitable institution, is now at its 2d edition. A few of the
1st edition are yet to be disposed of - price 50 cts."

"The price of the new edition, which has been much
 improved, is 75 cts. in black, $1 colored, neatly bound."

The concept of The American Toilet was not original to the U.S. The book was based upon a flap-book published in London in 1821.

"Small gift books were already popular in England during the 1820s, and the lithographer, Imbert, blatantly pirated a British work to produce his American Toilet. In this delicate little work, the illustrations of various cosmetic canisters have hinged flaps of paper which can be raised to see the 'true' beautifier. Thus 'A Wash to Smooth Away Wrinkles' is revealed to be 'laughter,' 'Genuine Rouge' to be 'modesty,' and so forth" (Reese, Nineteenth Century American Color-Plate Books).

Contrary to Reese, The American Toilet was not a piracy. It was, rather, inspired by The Toilet, which was anonymously written by Stacey Grimaldi, illustrated by his father, miniature painter William Grimaldi, and published in London by N. Hailes and R. Jennings in 1821. I recently had both volumes pass through my hands; the concept is similar, the execution  different, the Grimaldi version with thirty-two pages of text and only nine plates with flaps, the captions not couplets but, rather, extended verses. The American Toilet contains nineteen plates (plus title-page) and no accompanying text. Its illustrations and couplets are completely original.

"Although derivative from Stacey Grimaldi's The Toilet, first published in London in 1821, the American book was the work of the sisters Hannah Lindley Murray and Mary Murray. Neither of them is credited n the book itself, which as copyrighted by George Tracy, and the nature and extent of their involvement in its production is unclear. A second, 'improved' edition was also issued in 1827 for seventy-five cents a copy (the first cost fifty cents), and copies of each were available colored or uncolored. The publication of a second edition indicates some success, and the work was undoubtedly bought as a novelty, since it is probably the first American book to contain transformation plates. It began something of a tradition…" (John Carbonell, Prints and Printmakers of New York State: 1825-1940, edited by David Tatham, p. 24). 

Who were the Murray sisters?

"Hannah Lindley Murray (1777-1836), translator, born in New York City…Her father was a native of Pennsylvania, who settled in New York before the Revolution and was a successful merchant of that city for more than fifty years. The daughter'was an accomplished linguist, and with her sister, Mary, translated Tasso's 'Jerusalem Delivered,' the "Fall of Phaeton' from Ovid, a 'History of Hungary' from the French of M. de Sacy, Massillon's 'Discourses,' and a variety of operas from different languages. She also painted, wrote verses and hymns, and, aided by her sister, composed a poem in eight books on the 'Restoration of the Jews.' None of her writings were published until after her death, when a few of her miscellanies were included in a 'Memoir' by Reverend Gardiner Spring, D. D. (New York,1849)" (Appleton's Encyclopedia).

The first edition of The American Toilet was, apparently, published in 1825. There are five copies in institutional holdings worldwide, all in the U.S. It is scarcely, if ever, seen in commerce. The volume under notice is the second edition, issued without date but, according to the deposit notice verso to the title-page, published on January 11, 1827. It appears that the Murray sisters began the project by producing hand-made copies of the book that they sold to raise money for charity groups. They and their book, it seems, came to the attention of Imbert, who printed it based upon the Murrays' homemade version.

The British version was reprinted more than once. So was The American Toilet. Imbert published a third edition in 1832, and editions, presumably piracies, were published by Kellogg in Hartford, CT in 1841 and 1842 under the title The Young Ladies Toilet. In 1867 another edition was issued, in Washington D.C. by Ballantyne, under the title, The Toilet. There was a crudely produced piracy of The American Toilet published in Charleston, N.C. during the 1830s. "A garish and inferior version on a much larger scale is My Lady's Casket, published in Boston in 1835 [i.e. Lee and Shepard, 1885]" (Muir) with forty-eight recto-only leaves and new illustrations by Eleanor Talbot. The 1827 Imbert edition is typically found with damaged or missing flaps.

Percy Muir, in English Children's Books, discusses the original 1821 version under the rubric, "Toilet Books," a sub-species of conduct books.

If you've been waiting for the toilet-training joke, sorry to disappoint. However flush the possibilities, modesty, discretion, circumspection, meekness, and, in all things, regularity preclude further comment.

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[MURRAY, Hannah Lindley and Mary]. The American Toilet. New York: Printed and Published at Imbert's Lithographic Office, n.d. [January 11, 1827]. Second edition. Twentyfourmo (4 5/8 x 3 5/8 in; 118 x 85 mm).  Hand-colored lithographed title page with deposit notice to verso, and nineteen hand-colored lithographed plates with hinged flaps; a total of twenty hand-colored lithographs. Original full straight-grained morocco, rebacked at an early date, with gilt-rolled border and gilt lettering.

Not in Bennett.  Gumuchian, Les Livres De L'Enfance du XVe au XIXe Siecle 334. Rosenbach, Early American Children's Books 683. Reese 51.

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

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The Devil Made Le Poitevin Do It

by Stephen J. Gertz

Impish devils dance, make merry, carry off young maidens, engage in scatological activities, make mischief, toy with men and women. and generally have a hell of a time as infernal rascals frolicking with diabolical glee in Les Diables de Lithographies by Eugène Modeste Edmond Le Poitevin. 

Published in Paris, 1832, it is the most famous of all works, paint or print, by Le Poitevin (1806-1870), a French painter and lithographer. His "Devilries" established a genre in the wake of the Romantic school's Mephistopheles and Faust, from scenes to fright to scenes that, as here, delight and amuse, Satan a giant buff horned paysan overflowing with specimens for his torment-zoo.

The album, co-published in Paris by chez Aumont and in London by Charles Tilt, contains eighty illustrations on twelve black and white numbered lithographed plates, with two supplemental plates (Petits sujets des diableries manquent le plus souvent, nos. 19 and 26: Paris / London: chez Aubert / Charles Tilt, 1832) containing thirty-five illustrations; a total of fourteen plates with 115 illustrations.

In 1832 France was in turmoil. The idealism of republicans, which peaked during the July Revolution of 1830 when Charles X abdicated and Louis Philippe ascended to the new constitutional monarchy, had been shattered. Subsequent events led them to believe that the blood spilled in 1830 had been for naught. Food shortages and an outbreak of cholera that claimed over 18,000 lives in Paris alone added to the general discontent. Bonapartists bitterly lamented the loss of empire. Supporters of the former Bourbon dynasty were angry that Louis Philippe wasn't a Bourbon. The rich and the poor, who felt victimized by Louis Philippe, had their disillusionment expressed by Parisian republicans, including students, who took to the streets on June 5th and 6th in armed insurrection. The June Rebellion was crushed. 

Diabolical forces at work?

Upon its publication, Les Diables de Lithographies was hugely popular, a sensational success that became en vogue, so much so that demand for further "devilries" became enormous. Le Poitevin quickly  followed with Les diableries érotiques; Petits sujets des diableries; Bizarreries diaboliques; and Encore des Diableries. A. de Bayalos's Diablotins and Michel Delaporte's Récréations diabolico-fantasmagoriques continued in the genre that Le Poitevin established. Diables were all over the place, the zombie apocalypse of contemporary Parisian culture but a lot more fun for the protagonists, many of whom pass wind, water, or what's left of yesterday's lunch for sport.

It will come as no surprise that Les Diables de Lithographies is scarcely found complete, scarcer still in the publisher's original wrappers. The album was routinely broken up and the prints individually sold. OCLC records only one complete copy in institutional holdings worldwide. According to the ABPC Index, the last complete copy to come to auction was in 1923.

Plate 12.

As a painter, Le Poitevin specialized in marine art, as a lithographer he is best-known outside of France for his Devilries. He was a contributor to The Journal of Painters and Charles Philpon's La Caricature. He studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, a pupil of Louis Hersent and Xavier Leprince.  Very popular in his time, he exhibited at the Salon from 1831 until his death in 1870.

Le Poitevin's mark.

"Tout autre est Eugène Le Poitevin, le peintre de marines, qui popularise un genre bien différent mais dont le retentissement ne fut pas moins grand. Procédant en droite ligne du Méphistophélès de Faust et des tendances au bizarre de l’école romantique, les diableries de cet artiste vinrent jeter une note pittoresque et amusante au milieu des estampes sans couleur du consciencieux lithographe. Pendant un temps ce ne furent plus que diables et diableries, diables souvent érotiques, diableries plus ou moins légères. Les Diables, Petits sujets de diables, Bizarreries diaboliques, Encore des Diableries; c’est sous ces titres que se répandaient partout les albums à couverture brune de Le Poitevin qu’imitèrent bientôt de Bayalos avec ses Diablotins et Michel Delaporte avec ses Récréations diabolico-fantasmagoriques. Diables blancs et diables noirs suivis de diables rouges et de diables verts. Le diable se glissait partout, commettant mille incongruités, relevait les robes des femmes, les déshabillait comme par enchantement, les mettait en cage, les tirait par les cheveux, ayant toujours à son service un nombre incalculable de petits diablotins courant à tort et à travers les feuilles. Il y eut une telle invasion des sujets de messire Satan que ce ne fut plus, comme dans la chanson, « Vive la lithographie, » mais « au diable, les polissonnes" (Grand-Carteret, Les Moeurs et la caricature en France, p. 174).

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LE POITEVIN, [Eugène Modeste Edmond]. Les Diables de Lithographies. Paris / London: Chez Aumont / Charles Tilt, n.d. [1832].

First edition, complete. Oblong folio (14 3/8 x 21 3/4 in; 363 x 600 mm). Eighty illustrations on twelve black and white lithographed plates, numbered, with two supplemental plates (Petits sujets des diableries manquent le plus souvent, nos. 19 and 26: Paris / London: Aubert / Tilt, 1832) with thirty-five illustrations; a total of fourteen. 

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

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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.

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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.

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Images courtesy of David Brass Rare Books, with our thanks.
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A Bookbinding Workshop In 1840

by Stephen J. Gertz

This busy image of a nineteenth century bookbinding workshop c. 1840 is one of thirty hand-colored lithographed plates depicting twenty-nine trades and professions issued in 30 Werkstätten von Handwerkern by Jacob Ferdinand Schreiber, a leading German publisher of children's books.

Originally published c. 1840, this, the 1844 second edition, was greatly expanded from the first, which only contained twelve plates. Included here are views of potters; sculptors and masons; farriers; nailsmiths; locksmiths; coppersmiths; plumbers; cutlers; tinsmiths; bell founders; blacksmiths; gold and silver smiths; carpenters; coopers; turners; butchers; bakers; ropers; soap makers; tanners; shoemakers; saddlers; brush makers; drapers; tailors; milliners; weavers; and, in Booktryst propinquity, bookbinders. 

Each unsigned plate features a central image of craftsmen at work bordered with the primary tools of their trade.

The book - highly sought-after and rare with OCLC recording only nine copies in institutional holdings worldwide - is complete with an accompanying sixteen-page text booklet that is often lacking when copies find their way into the marketplace. But, according to ABPC, no copies have come to auction within the last twenty-eight years.

A copy, however, recently found its way into - and immediately out of -  circulation. It sold for $16,500.

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SCHREIBER, J.F. 30 Werkstätten von Handwerkern. Nebst ihren hauptsächlichsten Werkzeugen und Fabrikaten. Mit erklärenden Text. Zweite Auflage. Esslingen am Neckar: J.F. Schreiber, 1844. Second edition. Oblong folio (335 x 425 mm). Lithographed title page, thirty hand-colored lithographed plates. 16 pp text booklet inserted.

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Image courtesy of Antiquariaat Forum, with our thanks.

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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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