Paris: Delpech, 1840. A Rare Collaboration Between Frédéric Bouchot and Henri Monnier
Nine Beautifully Hand-Colored Lithographs Celebrating the Golden Age of French Social Satire
BOUCHOT, Frédéric [&] MONNIER, Henri. Recueil de Caricatures par Bouchot. [Paris, ca. 1840].
Oblong quarto (10 1/4 x 13 3/8 inches; 260 x 340 mm.). Lithographed title-page and eight hand-colored lithographed plates, four by Frédéric Bouchot and four by Henri Monnier, all lithographed by Bernard. Bound at the end is an additional hand-colored lithograph, mounted on a stub and marked in pencil "Planche Supplémentaire," entitled C'est donc comme ça que vous travaillez, Mesdemoiselles. All plates interleaved. Some light mottling and occasional marginal darkening, principally confined to the blank margins; otherwise an unusually fresh and attractive copy.
Bound circa 1880 in quarter brown straight-grain morocco over marbled boards, spine with five shallow raised bands, decoratively tooled in blind and lettered in gilt, marbled endpapers.
The hand colored plates are of exceptional freshness and delicacy. Transparent washes, subtly heightened with gum arabic, preserving the richness of the lithographic crayon while lending remarkable brilliance to costume, interiors, furnishings, and domestic settings. The impressions remain crisp and attractive throughout, giving the album a visual refinement seldom encountered in surviving examples of French satirical lithography.
A remarkably attractive collaborative album bringing together two of the most perceptive observers of bourgeois life during the golden age of French lithographic caricature. Although each artist possessed a distinctive style, the pairing is unusually harmonious. Monnier contributes his elegant studies of fashionable manners and domestic comedy, while Bouchot supplies his characteristically theatrical scenes of everyday life, together creating a lively panorama of Parisian society during the July Monarchy.
Particularly appealing is the balance between the two artists. Monnier, perhaps the finest chronicler of bourgeois manners before Gavarni, delights in exposing vanity, pretension, and fashionable affectation through restrained observation and subtle gesture. Bouchot, by contrast, stages his scenes almost theatrically, relying upon expressive body language, comic timing, and richly observed interiors. Read together, the plates offer a remarkably complete picture of middle-class Parisian life during the 1830s and 1840s.
The additional hand-colored supplementary plate, preserved at the end of the volume, represents a significant bibliographical enhancement. Examples of this lithograph are separately recorded in the collections of the Paris Musées, suggesting that it was not routinely issued with the album and was probably added by an early collector or bookseller. Its inclusion substantially increases both the rarity and interest of the present copy.
Henri Monnier (1799-1877) ranks among the founders of modern French social caricature. A gifted draughtsman, actor, playwright, and humorist, he profoundly influenced later artists including Gavarni and Daumier through his penetrating studies of bourgeois manners and everyday Parisian life.
Frédéric Bouchot (1798-after 1850), although today less celebrated than his contemporaries, was likewise one of the principal contributors to Le Charivari, La Caricature, and the Journal pour rire, producing some of the most engaging comic lithographs published during the July Monarchy.
