first edition
by GAVARNI [pseudonym of Guillaume Sulpice Chevallier]
Paris: Chez Aubert gal. Véro-Dodat, 1837. The Complete Second Series of Fourberies de Femmes
With Fifty-Two Lithograph Plates by Gavarni
GAVARNI [pseudonym of Guillaume Sulpice Chevallier]. Fourberies de femmes. Paris: Chez Aubert gal. Véro-Dodat, [n.d., 1837].
Second Series Complete.
Folio (13 1/8 x 9 7/8 inches; 334 x 251 mm.). Fifty-two lithograph plates. Eight-page publisher's catalog bound in at end. Plate no. 13 with an expertly and almost invisibly 3 1/8 inches repaired marginal tear. All plates with two small 'unidentified' circular stamps on the lower blank corners. Some occasional light and mainly marginal foxing, still an exceptional example.
Bound ca. 1840 in quarter maroon roan over maroon grained paper boards, front cover lettered in gilt, smooth spine, plain endpapers. Extremities of binding rubbed. A wonderful example. loosely inserted at the end are three duplicate plates (nos. 7, 23 & 25) all with the same small marginal stamps.
“In 1837 Gavarni began his connection with Le charivari, which did not conclude until 1848. In all he drew 1054 lithographs for his journal…Most of these appeared in series, some twenty-five of which extend to ten or more plates, and were afterwards published by Aubert in albums. Perhaps the best of these collections are Fourberies de femmes en matière de sentiment, Les étudiants de Paris, Les débardeurs, and Les lorettes; but some of the rest are of hardly inferior interest. Still further series, contributed to periodicals other than Le charivari, were also issued as albums. Baudelaire had this part of Gavarni’s work particularly in mind when he wrote…that ‘the true glory and the true mission of Gavarni and Daumier has been to complete Balzac.’ Certainly the pictures of Parisian society provided by the two artists perfectly complement each other. Daumier’s preoccupation was the working middle class with faces and figures heavily marked by life. Gavarni remained for the most part outside the humdrum bourgeois round. He preferred to show ‘youth at the prow and pleasure at the helm.’ His pretty girls and sleek young men are bent on enjoyment. They live lives of graceful dissipation, with love intrigues and balls on the one hand, and pawnbrokers’ shops and debtors’ prisons on the other. Their motto is carpe diem, and they rarely think of the day or reckoning” (Ray, p. 217).
“After the initial success of Caricaturana, Philipon proposed to Gavarni that he draw ‘Mme. Robert Macaire’ for Le charivari. He responded with twelve studies of female deception in which he seems to have adopted Vigny’s belief that ‘A woman, more or less, is always Delilah.’ They made little impression, but three years later Gavarni returned to the theme in a subtler and more amiable way with one of his most searching and amusing series. In no. 37 he offers this exchange: ‘How did you know, papa, that I loved Mr. Leon?—Because you always talked to me about Mr. Paul.’ Gavarni’s playful mastery of female psychology is not the only attraction of the series. If Daumier could not draw a pretty woman, as is sometimes alleged, Gavarni at this period could hardly draw an ugly one” (Ray, pp. 220-221).
Armelhault & Bocher 662-702; Ray, The Art of the French Illustrated Book, 151. (Inventory #: 06055)
With Fifty-Two Lithograph Plates by Gavarni
GAVARNI [pseudonym of Guillaume Sulpice Chevallier]. Fourberies de femmes. Paris: Chez Aubert gal. Véro-Dodat, [n.d., 1837].
Second Series Complete.
Folio (13 1/8 x 9 7/8 inches; 334 x 251 mm.). Fifty-two lithograph plates. Eight-page publisher's catalog bound in at end. Plate no. 13 with an expertly and almost invisibly 3 1/8 inches repaired marginal tear. All plates with two small 'unidentified' circular stamps on the lower blank corners. Some occasional light and mainly marginal foxing, still an exceptional example.
Bound ca. 1840 in quarter maroon roan over maroon grained paper boards, front cover lettered in gilt, smooth spine, plain endpapers. Extremities of binding rubbed. A wonderful example. loosely inserted at the end are three duplicate plates (nos. 7, 23 & 25) all with the same small marginal stamps.
“In 1837 Gavarni began his connection with Le charivari, which did not conclude until 1848. In all he drew 1054 lithographs for his journal…Most of these appeared in series, some twenty-five of which extend to ten or more plates, and were afterwards published by Aubert in albums. Perhaps the best of these collections are Fourberies de femmes en matière de sentiment, Les étudiants de Paris, Les débardeurs, and Les lorettes; but some of the rest are of hardly inferior interest. Still further series, contributed to periodicals other than Le charivari, were also issued as albums. Baudelaire had this part of Gavarni’s work particularly in mind when he wrote…that ‘the true glory and the true mission of Gavarni and Daumier has been to complete Balzac.’ Certainly the pictures of Parisian society provided by the two artists perfectly complement each other. Daumier’s preoccupation was the working middle class with faces and figures heavily marked by life. Gavarni remained for the most part outside the humdrum bourgeois round. He preferred to show ‘youth at the prow and pleasure at the helm.’ His pretty girls and sleek young men are bent on enjoyment. They live lives of graceful dissipation, with love intrigues and balls on the one hand, and pawnbrokers’ shops and debtors’ prisons on the other. Their motto is carpe diem, and they rarely think of the day or reckoning” (Ray, p. 217).
“After the initial success of Caricaturana, Philipon proposed to Gavarni that he draw ‘Mme. Robert Macaire’ for Le charivari. He responded with twelve studies of female deception in which he seems to have adopted Vigny’s belief that ‘A woman, more or less, is always Delilah.’ They made little impression, but three years later Gavarni returned to the theme in a subtler and more amiable way with one of his most searching and amusing series. In no. 37 he offers this exchange: ‘How did you know, papa, that I loved Mr. Leon?—Because you always talked to me about Mr. Paul.’ Gavarni’s playful mastery of female psychology is not the only attraction of the series. If Daumier could not draw a pretty woman, as is sometimes alleged, Gavarni at this period could hardly draw an ugly one” (Ray, pp. 220-221).
Armelhault & Bocher 662-702; Ray, The Art of the French Illustrated Book, 151. (Inventory #: 06055)
(818) 222-4103
