Souvenirs de Garnison et des plaisirs attachés a la chose

Paris: Chez Aubert & Cie., 1850. Amusing Memories from a French Military Post...
With Thirty Finely Hand-Colored Comical Scenes...

[CHAM, illustrator, pseud. of Charles Amédée de Noé]. Souvenirs de Garnison et des plaisirs attachés a la chose. Paris: Chez Aubert, n.d. [ca. 1850].

First edition. Large oblong quarto (10 1/8 x 12 7/8 inches; 258 x 327 mm). Pictorial lithographed title and thirty fine comical hand-colored lithographed plates all heightened with gum arabic. Each plate with printed caption below.

Publisher's tan lithographed boards. Rebacked to style. Boards a little soiled, corners and extremities a little worn, inner hinges strengthened. Some occasional light and mainly marginal foxing, still an excellent copy of this extremely rare Cham title.

A highly amusing collection of lithographs by Cham... his comic view of the French military. Although this title is sometimes seen with the plates uncolored - this hand colored edition is somewhat scarce - we have only handled one other colored copy over the past fifty years (2011).

CHAM (pseudonym of Amédée de Noé) (1818-1879). French caricaturist and lithographer, published his first book Monsieur Lajeunesse in 1839 and from 1843 began to be regularly published in illustrated magazines such as Le Charivari (which in 1835 focused primarily on publishing satires of everyday life), thereafter becoming one of the most popular of French caricaturists through entertaining storybooks such as this work which satirized 'jokes in poor taste.'

Several artists "followed in the wake of Daumier and Gavarni. Among the most attractive of the former is Amédéé de Noé, "known as Cham (that is, Ham, the son of Noah)...it was said that he had ‘an idea a day' for Le charivari. A good proportion of his thousands of lithographs were gathered into albums. His contributions to the Album du siège (173), in which Daumier was his collaborator, are typical of his work" (Ray, pp. 155-156).

Cham had contacts with English artists, many of whom had trained on the Continent, most in company with English artist and follower of the pioneering German lithographer Alois Senefelder.

The Plates:
1. L'Infanterie à Cheval
2. De la Coupe.
3. La Thèorie.
4. En V'la du Grueau!
5. Cas non prévu par la loi.
6. C'est pas amusant la Guerre.
7. Merci de la Préférence!
8. Heureux Conscrit!
9. Le Pansage.
10. Ah ça pekin, tu n'as donc jamais vu deux troupiers...
11. Non mon colonel la musique ne marche pas trop...
12. Coupe à 10 centimes, frisure gratis.
13. Monsieur le Vicomte.
14. Qué Bétise!
15. Petit Inconvenient de la Salle de Police.
16. Oui, j'ai quitté le Service.
17. Cap'taine!
18. Ce qui prouve la nécessité de L'Etude.
19. Quel artifice!...
20. Réformes dans l'uniforme.
21. Le pas gymnastique.
22. Il faut consoler les malades.
23. Quel amour de bonnet!...
24. Inspection de Cavalerie.
25. Gueux D'Arabes!
26. En V'la des Inventions.
27. M'est avis, Jean Piarre, que ce beau Monchieu qu'tire le village...
28. Pacot, le pot-aux-roses est decouvert...
29. Je fus hier à l'opera... Fus-tu content?
30. Y ne savent quoi inventer pour nous époumonner!