Author: DAUMIER, Honoré; PHILIPON, Charles
Title: Cent Et Un Robert-Macaire, Les
Description: Paris: Chez Aubert et Cie, Éditeurs du Musée pour Rire, 1839. An Exceptionally Rare Hand-Colored Copy [DAUMIER, Honoré, illustrator]. Les Cent et un Robert-Macaire, composés et dessinés par M. H. Daumier, sur les idées et les légendes de M. Ch. Philipon, réduits et lithographiés par MM. ***; texte par MM Maurice Alhoy et Louis Huart. Paris: Chez Aubert et Cie, Éditeurs du Musée pour Rire, 1840 and 1839. First Printing of 101 lithographed plates after Honoré Daumier, reduced from the plates published in the Charivari in 1836-1838. Two quarto volumes (10 1/4 x 8 inches; 260 x 203 mm.). [8], [200], [4, publisher’s advertisements]; [8], [204], [4, publisher’s advertisements] pp. With 101 fine hand-colored lithographed plates, heightened with gum arabic. Contemporary half dark purple polished calf, decoratively ruled in gilt, over brown diaper-grain cloth boards. Smooth spines decoratively tooled and lettered horizontally in gilt. Marbled edges. Joints expertly and almost invisibly restored. Some occasional light foxing and browning, small light damp-stain in the upper blank margin of a few leaves in each volume. Volume I with small portion (5/8 x 1/4 inch) of lower blank corner of second leaf of No. 4 torn away, small piece torn from upper blank margin (1/4 x 1/2 inch) of first leaf of No. 50. Volume II with a short tear (1/2 inch) neatly repaired in the lower gutter of both leaves of No. 53. An excellent copy with superb hand coloring. “Les Robert-Macaire remains Daumier’s best-known series-Baudelaire chose it, along with Histoire ancienne, for specific discussion in his essay on French caricaturists, and Carteret accorded it a place in his bibliography. Its contemporary popularity was immense. As an album it was published by Aubert in an edition of 2500 copies, a far larger number than for any other series. Yet, so persistent was the demand, that 600 two-volume sets of reduced copies, called Les cent-et-un Robert-Macaire, were published in 1839-When politics became a forbidden topic in Le charivari, where Caricaturana [Les Robert-Macaire] first appeared, Daumier and Philipon turned to social satire. If they could not attack Louis Philippe directly, they could at least show the kind of society that flourished under his gross and venal regime. Taking the flamboyant and florid swindler Macaire from the character that Frédérick Lemaître had created in a hack melodrama called L’Auberge des adrets, they showed him and his inseparable companion, the dejected and meager Bertrand, ranging through all kinds of commercial enterprise, in the stock market, in the banks, in the courts, and in dozens of other public settings, never failing to find eager dupes. Macaire is equally persuasive in the encounters of private life, where no situation finds him at a loss for an appropriate flower of sentiment-Though Daumier’s designs are superb in themselves, particularly in the variety of supple and telling poses-that he conceives for Macaire and Bertrand, they would be incomplete without the unfailing wit and point of Philipon’s captions” (Ray, The Art of the French Illustrated Book, pp. 234-236). “These reduced and for the most part reversed copies of Daumier’s lithographs, apparently drawn by Menut Alophe, are greatly inferior to the originals. Unlike Caricaturana, the series is not often found colored” (Ray, The Art of the French Illustrated Book, p. 236). Carteret III, 187; Ray, The Art of the French Illustrated Book, 162; Vicaire III, cols. 31-32 (under Alhoy) and V, cols. 572-573 (under Philipon).  . .

Keywords: PHILIPON, Charles Color-Plate Books Caricatures Books in French Caricatures French Caricature


See more books from our catalog: Color-Plate Books