Costumes Francais depuis Clovis jusqu'a nos Jours

Very good copy of the first volume of Massard's Costumes Francais (French Costumes)

With all 160 hand-coloured lithographs drawn and lithographed by Leopold Massard (one uncoloured)

First volume of a four-volume set that is very hard to find complete

Plates numbered 1-160 in the index, but 1-60, 1-16 of the second series, and 77-160 within the plates.

Very vibrantly hand-coloured plates of 1,000 years of French fashions from the time of Clovis I (5th century) to Charles V (14th century). Subjects include a wide range of society from royalty to peasants, and include kings and queens, dukes and ladies, servants, maids, soldiers, bourgeois, falconer, troubadours, archers, soldiers, crossbowmen, knights, crusaders, executioner, etc. Royal portrait plates include Clovis I, Chlotar I, Charlemagne, Lothair I, Philip the Bold, Henry III, Philip IV, Charles IV, Jean II, Charles V, Louis II, etc.

Leopold Massard (1812-1889) was a French artist, miniaturist, engraver and lithographer. Grandson of the engraver Jean Massard. He engraved hundreds of plates for Costumes Francais 1834, Collection de portraits et costumes des differens peuples 1837, Tenint's Les Francais sous la Revolution 1843, Paul Lacroix's Costumes Historiques de la France 1852, and exhibited miniatures at the Paris Salon from 1845.

Leather spine chipped, gilt title "Costumes Francais" and five gilt bands on spine, hinges cracked, marble boards heavily rubbed, front hinge cracked. All 160 plates present, general age toning to the plates more than text, some foxing to tissue guards, but all finely hand-coloured in vibrant hues.