Paris Comique, Revue Amusante

Paris: Chez Aubert, Éditeur du Musée Philipon…, 1842. Twenty Superb Hand Colored Lithograph Plates by Daumier, Gavarni, Platier, Bouchot & Plattel

[DAUMIER, Honoré & others]. Paris Comique, Revue Amusante Des Caractères, Moeurs, Modes, Folies, Ridicules, Excentricités, Niaiseries, Bêtises, Sottises, Voleries et Infamies Parisiennes. Text non politique Par MM. L. Huart, Michelant, Ch. Philipon, et autres Rédacteurs du Charivari et de la Caricature: Dessins Comiques par MM. Bouchot, Cham (de N..), Daumier, Gavarni, Grandville, et autrés artistes du Musée Philipon. Paris: Chez Aubert, Éditeur… [1844].

Folio (13 3/16 x 10 inches; (truncated) 335 x 254 mm.). [iv], [152] pp. Twenty magnificent hand colored lithographs, all heightened with gum arabic. Some light foxing which is mainly confined to the blank borders of the plates.

The plates are by: Jules Platier (6); Honoré Daumier (5); Paul Gavarni (4); Frédéric Bouchot (4) & Henri Daniel Plattel (1).

Publisher's quarter green calf over pictorial green paper boards, smooth pine decoratively ruled and lettered in gilt in compartments. Extremities a little rubbed otherwise near fine. An excellent example, with eleven of the wonderful hand colored lithographs by Honoré Daumier and Paul Gavarni.

“The house of Aubert was ingenious in marketing its products. Its lithographs…were published one by one in periodicals like Le charivari and together in suites by the same artist without letterpress. Still a third form of publication was in albums made up of lithographs by several artists with accompanying texts. These collections most commonly took the form of volumes with the generic title Paris Comique, which consisted of twenty colored lithographs accompanied by quite unrelated texts. Aubert remarked that the resulting hodgepodge had ‘a plan that is easy to follow, for it consists in not having any,’ and in fact this was indeed a frugal procedure for reusing old texts and already published plates. The interest of the various volumes of Paris comique resides entirely in the lithographs they happen to contain. It can be considerable, however, since Daumier and Gavarni are the predominant artists” (Ray, The Art of the French Illustrated Book, 164).

The Plates:

1. DAUMIER. Chasse et Pêche (no. 8). Je l'ai pris pour un lièvre.

2. DAUMIER. Monomanes (no. 7). Le Malde Imaginaire.

3. GAVARNI. Les Plaisirs Champêtres (no. 2). Le Charge D'Affaires.

4. BOUCHOT. L'École des Voyageurs (no. 12). La Neige.

5. DAUMIER. Croquis D'Expressions (no. 44). Charmant,, jeune, trainant tous les coeurs après soi, Cel qu'on depeint nos Dieux ou tel que je vous vois! (Phedre).

6. GAVARNI. Les Rêves (no. 2). Monsieur Joseph rêve qu'il est Cure et dit la Messe à St. Thomas d'Aquin.

7. DAUMIER. Croquis D'Expressions (no. 2).

8. PLATIER. Profils Contemporains (no. 15). Le Restaurateur.

9. BOUCHOT. Ce Que Parler Veut Dire (no. 11).

10. GAVARNI. Transacions (no. 7). Qu'est ce que tu me bailleras b'en si j' te rends ton fagot?

11. BOUCHOT. Ce Que Parler Veut Dire (no. 16).

12. BOUCHOT. Ce Que Parler Veut Dire (no. 5).

13. PLATIER. Actualites (no. 22).

14. PLATIER. Actualites (no. 27).

15. PLATIER. Croquis D'Expressions (no. 96).

16. GAVARNI. Actualités (no. 1).

17. PLATIER. Croquis D'Expressions (no. 89).

18. DAUMIER. Croquis D'Expressions (no. 45).

19. PLATTEL. Actualités (no. 1).

20. PLATIER. Les Mauvais Payeurs (no. 4). (Inventory #: 06206)