Paris, Georges Decaux, 1888.
1 vol. (205 x 300 mm) of 404 p., [2] and 1 f. Publisher's green percaline, decorated with a polychrome and gilt design after A. Souze, gilt edges (Engel Rel.).
First edition. 50 plates by Albert Robida, engraved on strong vellum, including 8 in color, and 275 black-and-white illustrations in the text.
A landmark of nineteenth-century pictorial and popular history, this book distills Robida’s satirical and pedagogical view of a century he describes “from within”: techniques, customs, spectacles, revolutions and “progress” together form a panorama in which the caricaturist’s eye becomes a historian’s. A fellow traveler of Mérimée and Viollet-le-Duc in defending the new idea of heritage, Robida offers a richly visual narrative that belongs to what would later be called the “roman national,” in which staged scenes, monuments and political episodes (down to the Commune) are captured with an immediately readable graphic verve.
A fine copy, particularly fresh.
#32208
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