Esquisses Parisiennes [Parisian Sketches]

Paris: Lithog de Delpech, 1827. Parisian Sketches" by Henry Monnier

MONNIER, Henry. Esquisses Parisiennes, [Parisian Sketches] par Henri Monnier 1827. Paris: Delpech, 1827.

First Edition. Oblong quarto (10 1/4 x 13 1/8 inches; 260 x 332 mm.).

Complete with the plain lithographed frontispiece title-page and all ten fine and amusing hand colored lithograph plates of Parisian Sketches (all mounted on stubs). (Marie p.248).

Bound ca. 1925 in quarter red morocco over marbled boards. Spine with four raised bands lettered in gilt, marbled end-papers.

A few plates with very light marginal foxing, otherwise a very fine example of this great rarity.

The plates:

1. Indiscrétion. (Indiscretion)
2. Un Mariage de raison. (A marriage of reason)
3. Un Monsieur à Bonnes Fortunes. (A gentleman with good fortune)
4. Les Bons Parens. (Good parents)
5. Un Parraine. (A sponsor)
6. Les Politiques. (Policies)
7. Une Méprise. (A misunderstanding)
8. Une Débutante. (A beginner)
9. Les Visites. (The visits)
10. Une Protectrice. (A protectress)

Only one copy has appeared at auction over the past fifty years (1984). We sold a copy several years ago but it was bound without the lithograph title-page.

Exceptionally rare with only one copy in libraries and institutions worldwide: The Morgan Library & Museum (NY, USA). According to OCLC that copy has twelve hand-colored lithograph plates. However Marie (p.248) states "N'est-ce pas erreur que Champfleury note que cette série comprend douze pièces? (Is it not in error that Champfleury notes that this series includes twelve plates?).

"When Henry Monnier was barely old enough to trot off to school in his first pair of buttoned trousers and Charles Dickens was not yet born, Rowlandson was publishing the Comforts of Bath, and Miseries of Human Life. These humorous sketches of contemporary society suggest in their general plan and point of view Monnier's Esquisses Parisiennes (1827), Vues de Paris (1829), and various other works containing groups of scenes connected by a central theme, particularly the Petites Misères Humaines, for which Monnier may have borrowed Rowlandson's title and its companion work, Les Petites Félicités Humaines (1829). (Edith Melcher. The Life and Times of Henry Monnier, p.37).

Bobins III, 967; Marie, 311-320; Melcher, p.37; Not mentioned in Gordon Ray. The Art of the French Illustrated Book.