Album du bord

First edition of this album of caricatures by Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi which he numbered and initialed (copy no. 36). Printed “in small numbers” (Bartholdi Museum), with only six located in institutions (Colmar Museum, BnF, Harvard, UPenn, NYPL, Rutgers University).

Publisher’s blue cloth binding, flat spine gilt-lettered lengthwise, upper board numerously framed in black, anchors and stars stamped in black at the corners, title and date gilt-stamped; lower board numerously framed in black, black stars at the corners and a central anchor, red edges. Slight rubbing to joints, faint mottling to the lower part of the upper board, a few plate tabs slightly split at foot, not affecting the integrity of the binding.

Illustrated with an engraved title-frontispiece, a half-title featuring the head of the Statue of Liberty, and 30 full-page hand-coloured lithographs.

Exceptionally rare copy of Auguste Bartholdi’s caricature album created on board the steamship bound for the United States for the 1876 Philadelphia World’s Fair, where he exhibited part of the Statue of Liberty.

This curious album contains the only caricature of the Statue by Bartholdi ever published: a vignette on the half-title depicting the top of Lady Liberty’s crowned head with her amused eyes emerging above the Atlantic. Moreover, the profits from the album were donated to the Franco-American subscription fund for the statue’s construction.

In 1876, the United States celebrated one hundred years of independence with the first World’s Fair held on American soil. Bartholdi stood at the center of events as commissioner of the French delegation, but above all as the creator of the celebrated Statue of Liberty. The subscription period had not allowed the statue to be completed in time to be unveiled at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition. Only its already finished monumental arm and torch-bearing hand were transported and exhibited at Fairmont Park on the exhibition grounds.

The venture had a great success with visitors, who could climb into the torch for 50 cents to help finance the American pedestal.

Bartholdi departed on the steamship L’Amérique from the port of Le Havre at the beginning of May 1876, around the same time as the arm of his statue. During the two-week crossing, he gleefully caricatured his unsuspecting colleagues from the French delegation to the Philadelphia Exhibition.

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Bartholdi had been practicing caricature since his school days. The famous London World’s Fair of 1851 had already inspired an entire album of sketches and English physiognomies, which has remained unpublished. With his sharp, Daumier-like style, Bartholdi was unanimously regarded as an excellent caricaturist though only these thirty portraits were ever published:

“On board the ship, his intention stemmed from the same carefree spirit. He sketched the various figures with astonishing acuity; the individual features are exaggerated to the extreme, the drawing dry and vigorous, angular and full of truth — it is humour à la Bartholdi. To complete this gallery of characters, he even portrays himself. These drawings, executed in the presence of their amused victims, were greatly enjoyed, and the willing participants suggested publishing the set under the title Album de bord.” (Société d’histoire et d’archéologie de Colmar, Annuaire 1979, vol. XXVIII, p. 84).

The superbly watercoloured plates feature funny verses written by Louis Simonin, a mining engineer whose research is known for having inspired Germinal to Émile Zola and Sans famille to Hector Malot. The preface reveals that behind the listed publishers (“Bartholdi, Simonin, Fouret & C^ie.”) stood in fact the famous Hachette publishing house, whose associate Étienne Fouret was among Bartholdi’s shipboard companions. In the album, he is depicted as a giant on the ship’s deck description in a witty caption: “Fouret, the pride and pick of the house of Hachette, / Who gives so many books and hopes you’ll buy each!” (pl. 10).

A fine copy in its original publisher’s binding numbered and initialled by Bartholdi of this “already very rare small humourous volume” (Charles Lefebvre, Revue Alsacienne, 1881) and true “Bartholdi for bibliophiles,” as Alain Fourquier aptly put it.