Cloth
by Roué, Auguste
Cloth. Good. N.d., circa 1910. 4to. 25.5 by 20 cm. 96 pages of bawdy songs, in French, illustrated with color pencil drawings, mostly of ladies and officers, generally humorous, bawdy or risque. Heightening their delight is how they are so deeply rooted in the time period of their creation -- in the dress and styles of the teens, in the feminine physiques idealized, in their conception of the mildly transgressive and naughty. The artwork, although depicting the fashionable and sophisticated, has the charming artlessness of folk art. This is not the product of a trained professional, clearly. Yet never can we not vividly visualize the scenes the artist has worked up. Roué was the headwaiter aboard the Cruiser Battleship La Gloire, and as such he was ideally situated to observe the kinds of people and their behavior that went into his artwork here. Condition: stitching loose in the binding. Some soiling of the boards. Cloth worn at corners. Leaves within with light soiling, minor dog ear-ing.
(Inventory #: 006564)