Album de Coiffures Travesties Troisieme Serie. Modeles de la Coiffure Francaise Illustree 1889 - 1907

Paris: Albert Brunet, 1907. Full Morocco. Very Good. Folio, measuring 14 by 11 inches, 35.5 by 28 cm, containing 12 color plates (color lithography) featuring five heads (or busts) with historic, eccentric and/or fanciful hairstyles and dress. Facing the plates, on the tissue guards, are explanatory notes. The styles presented were probably intended to inspire costumes for fancy dress balls, then the rage. Now, as surely then, the figures can tickle and delight us, and this album is far less ponderous than the encyclopaedic tomes on costume such as Racinet or fashion periodicals of the period. Each figure is given a name, to which the fashion presented (truncated) has drawn its inspiration, sometimes literally, other times more loosely. So we have an extravagant "Coiffure Moyen-Age", a "Cupidon", a "Petit Fetard", a funny "Medecin", a "Meduse", an "Oncle Sam", a "Manon", a "Pierrot President", "Carmen", "Cerises", a bizarre "Poire", a Madamoiselle "Mephisto", and on and on. Wraps bound in leather. Leather rubbed along edges, with vertical tear running length of spine, and spine thus partially perished. Ownership stamp of prior owner, a Hungarian, on edge of plates. (Inventory #: 006575)