Les Français peints par eux-mêmes. Encyclopédie morale du dix-neuvième siècle - Le prisme [Avec] Les Anglais peints par eux-mêmes

Les Français peints par eux-mêmes. Encyclopédie morale du dix-neuvième siècle – Le Prisme [with] Les Anglais peints par eux-mêmes [The French painted by themselves – The English painted by themselves]
First edition, one of the grand papier (deluxe) copies with two states of the illustrations for the 8 volumes of Les Français peints par eux-mêmes: one in black on tinted paper, and one enhanced by hand using the so-called “coloris gommé” technique with watercolour and varnish on white paper. Les Anglais peints par eux-mêmes includes the engravings in black. No deluxe copies in colour have been made for this rare set of Les Français.

Bound in half brown morocco, spine in five compartments enhanced with stipple engraving and double gilt panels richly decorated with gilt floral motifs framing a mosaic medallion of green morocco with a gilt rose stamped in the center, cartouches at the top decorated with a gilt garland framing the place and publication date, some light minor rubbing on some compartments, gilt fillets on the marbled paper boards, comb-patterned endpapers, top edges gilt. Elegant late nineteenth century bindings signed Durvand-Thiret.

Complete with all engravings along with added engravings, i.e. 930 engravings including 415 in colour. Title pages dated 1841 for all volumes of Les Français except for volume 5 of Les Parisiens and volume 3 of La Province dated 1842. Les Français peints par eux-mêmes has 415 engravings in black (including that of Napoleon on horseback) instead of the 405 announced and 415 in colour including a double page map of France in volume III of the Province. The English volume illustrated by Kenny Meadous is complete with 100 plates in black.

This unique set contains in total almost a thousand black and coloured engravings and more than 1500 in-text illustrations.
Famous gallery of woodcut portraits depicting the social classes of the 19th century by the greatest artists of the time: Gavarni, Daumier, Delacroix, Grandville, Johannot, Bellangé, Charlet, Daubigny, etc... The portraits are all accompanied by original texts from the most famous Romantic authors, including: Balzac, Nodier, Gautier, Nerval, Gozlan, Janin, Karr, etc...
Scarce foxing affecting mainly the Prism and the Anglais.

The texts and illustrations of the book paint a lively picture of inhabitants and their trade in metropolitan France and its colonies. It sets the tone for panoramic literature – a new genre coined by Walter Benjamin in Charles Baudelaire. A lyric poet at the height of capitalism. In addition to these portraits of the Français, “the contribution of a whole areopagus of great and small authors and illustrators” (S. Le Men, “La 'littérature panoramique' dans la genèse de la Comédie Humaine: Balzac et Les Français peints par eux-mêmes”, L'Année balzacienne 2002/1 (No. 3) CAIRN) includes some of the most renowned authors and cartoonists of the time, each of whom made an original creation for the project.

This protean fresco was directed by editor Léon Curmer, already known for the publishing success of Paul et Virginie between 1836 and 1838. Curmer is represented here by an article, “L'éditeur” in volume IV written by Elias Regnault. The latter takes example in Louis-Sebastien Mercier's Tableau de Paris, published in 1781, whose vision is even further extended by the representation of French provinces in Les Français. Thanks to Curmer the work finds an even deeper meaning: “the editor has widened his frame, and instead of letting a few fleeting portraits get lost in the immense daily whirlwind that engulfs all things, he has sought to bring together the most salient physiognomies of that time.” (S. Le Men, Ibid.)
Curmer selected the authors and illustrators closest to the ones they depict: “It is therefore a question of calling upon authors and illustrators who are well selected according to the 'types' they will have to portray.” (S. Le Men, Ibid.).
Les Français was published in fascicules – a common format at the time, allowing for a greater investment by the public whose opinion and subscription would count for the orientation of future articles. Readers were called upon to contribute, as shown by the “Correspondance des Français” preserved in our copy of Prisme, where the editor responds to readers' suggestions for articles: “Le Coiffeur [hairdresser] de M. Paul Tén... is a most spiritual article. We regret that the Coiffeur type having already been published we cannot accept it.” (Prisme, Issue 84)

The book is lavishly illustrated in the text with vignettes and culs-de-lampe, but it is above all the full-page figure in a landscape opposite the page of the text (so-called “types”) which constitute a novelty in the history of the illustrated book.

These portrayals in traditional settings and various occupations are close to the science of physiology popular at the time. Studying social groups, it aims to determine a representation of an individual who would be the prime example of his group, inevitably leading to a form of caricature.
This “project of a moral encyclopaedia which summarises the whole of society” (Léon Curmer) is the accomplished testimony of an era. Curmer's contemporaries found in the work “a sort of collective self-portrait in which “Paris” and “the provinces” follow one another, and in which each group will be able to recognise itself in one issue or another. (Ségolène Le Men, Ibid.). From its conception its main objective was to capture a fleeting present that lives according to the Baudelairian fashion, in order to “make a portrait of contemporary manners, amusing for the present, instructive for the future.” (Ségolène Le Men, Ibid.)

An important and rare copy of a masterpiece of the romantic illustrated book. A deluxe edition with Le Prisme with the addition of Les Anglais peints par eux-mêmes set in perfect uniform and mosaic bindings signed Durvand Thivet.