Modes et manières du jour à Paris, à la fin du 18e siècle et au commencement du 19e. Collection de 52 gravures coloriées.

Set of 52 original plates, etched and enhanced with watercolours at the time, numbered 1 to 52, mounted in pairs under mats.
 
Leaves in red half calf slipcase (early 20th century), red shagreen boards.
The plates vary in size (10.8 x 17.6 cm to 28.1 x 18.8 cm) and paper stock, as was often the case with La Mésangère's publications. Unbound engraved title on a bifolium, printed separately, absent from most copies. It is replaced here by its identical reprint by Gosselin (1893-1903), on antique watermarked paper and bears the publisher's 'G' mark, characteristic of this reprint a century later. All the plates, however, are in their first edition, without the G mark added by Gosselin to the lower corners of the engravings, in the figure or the bowl, occasionally accompanied by a date.
 
Some foxing, a few rare engravings showing traces of pasted tabs on the reverse. Plate 42 restored without missing. A green stain in plate 11 probably due to the watercolour of the landscape. Twelve plates are trimmed to the plate mark: pl. 12 (12.7 x 19.2 cm), pl. 15 (12.4 x 18.7 cm), pl. 19 (11.9 x 19.8 cm), pl. 29 (11.9 x 19 cm), pl. 30 (12.5 x 19 cm), pl. 39 (12.1 x 18.4 cm), pl. 41 (12.5 x 19.1 cm), pl. 42 (12.5 x 19.1 cm), pl. 48 (11.9 x 18.3 cm), pl. 49 (12.9 x 19.9 cm), pl. 51 (12.5 x 18.4 cm), and pl. 52 (12 x 18.1 cm). Plate 37 is trimmed around the black border (10.8 x 17.6 cm). More pronounced foxing in the margins of plates 4, 28, 30, 31, 35, 44, 45, and 47.
 
A rare and precious complete suite of 52 original costume prints from the Directoire and First Empire periods.

Deemed "unfindable" by Gaudriault in his study of women's fashion engravings in France, this is the only complete set of first editions currently available.
This series of elegant silhouettes was published on the initiative of the bookseller Sellèque and Pierre La Mésangère, a clergyman who returned to the press after the turmoil of the Revolution. In 1800, La Mésangère took over the management of the renowned Journal des Dames et des Modes, a pioneering publication in the history of the women's press, and produced a few standalone series, such as this one, aimed at 'a category of connoisseurs with an interest in a more refined and luxurious interpretation of fashion than that offered by the plates in the newspapers' (Philippe Séguy, Histoire des modes sous l'Empire). The plates are the work of Philippe-Louis Debucourt, a painter of French elegance since 1787, and a regular contributor to the Journal des Modes. The first 38 date from Year VIII, the next 12 from Year IX and the last two from 1808.
 
Through these 52 costumes unfolds a veritable grammar of dress, a precious alphabet of the gown and hat - a language in which Parisian women were particularly well versed. Shepherdesses, sultanas, Etruscan princesses... the trend leaned towards exoticism, even eroticism, with the occasional bare breast. We find the fashions brought to the fore by the Merveilleuses following the Revolution, inspired by Antiquity and mythology - gowns of iridescent muslin, light and form-fitting, alongside coats, bandeau hairstyles, and Grecian tunics. The captions accompanying the etchings often provide detailed descriptions of the attire, hairstyles, and headwear, meticulously enhanced with watercolour. Some figures even double as biting social commentary verging on caricature, featuring characters such as the ludicrously pretentious Turcaret, a recurring theatrical figure since the early 18th century, or genre scenes teeming with amorous intrigues.
The significance of this series in the history of colour engraving is noteworthy, albeit underappreciated by bibliographers. Some plates bear tiny black dots in the margins, indicating the process of colour engraving by superimposing intaglio plates. These marks, mentioned in Debucourt's catalogue raisonné (pp. 66-85), were omitted in later reprints.
 
However, it appears this technique, which 'fell out of use at the dawn of the 19th century,'was combined here with hand-applied watercolor highlights: 'The era of hand-coloring began—and who would have predicted it? —with Debucourt, his Frascati and his Types after Carle Vernet! The registration marks, indicators of plate superimposition, disappear from the margins of prints' (Béraldi, Les graveurs du XIXe siècle). The quality of the colouring does not allow us to determine whether mechanical assistance played a role in the watercolour highlights or whether the black dots are merely vestiges of a revolutionary but short-lived technique.
 
A superb and exceptionally rare complete gallery of portraits from a pivotal moment in both women's fashion and the history of colour engraving.
 
Maurice Fenaille, L'Œuvre gravé de P.-L. Debucourt, 1899, pp. 71-122.