Musée Cosmopolite: Musée de Costumes, Volume 1, France

Single volume only with 95 (of 100) steel engraved plates of French regional costumes of the mid-19th century

Just as fashion illustrator Louis-Marie Lante travelled through the French departments for Pierre de La Mésangère in the early 19th century, so publisher Aubert's artists visited towns and villages throughout France for this series. The illustrations were drawn by fashion-plate artists such as Francois Claudius Compte-Calix, Adolphe Varin, Marie-Alexandre Alophe, Jean-Joseph Bonaventure Laurens, Celestin Deshayes, and C. Maurice. The fine steel engravings were by Gabriel Montaut d'Oleron, Adolphe Portier, Charles Paquien, Laurent Guerdet, Armand Joseph Lallemand, Alfred Revel, Ernest Monnin, Adolphe d'Hastrel, Ferdinand, Gaite, Geoffroy, Preval, Pelée, Girardet, etc.

There are fishermen and fishwives, sailors, peasants, milkmaids, butter sellers, grisettes (seamstresses and artist's models), yarn spinners, laundry woman, shrimpers, taxmen, and many other trades. They are depicted in their Sunday best for church, festival costumes for regional fetes, work clothes and mourning clothes. There's even one of the earliest depictions of a woman in a swimming costume for the newfangled fashion of sea bathing!

There are many distinctive regional items such as the Brelot black-lace hat of Bresse, the decorated plastron (stiff bodice) of Alsace, the ruban (ribbon headdress) of Arles, the txapela (beret) and espartinak (espadrilles) of the Basque region, the bragoù bras (wide breeches) and penn bazh (iron-tipped club) of the Breton men, shepherds and postmen of Landes walking on stilts, etc.

The complete set ran to 11 suites of 468 plates, published without title pages or tables of contents, comprising France 100, Spain and Portugal 37, Russia 38, Belgium and Holland 14, America 27, Germany 29, Turkey, Greece and Egypt 61, Sweden and Norway 30, Switzerland and the Tyrol 26, Algeria 64, and Italy 42. According to the prospectus, "All the costumes were drawn from nature, engraved on steel by the best engravers and coloured by hand. Printed on high quality vellum paper to be assembled into volumes of different countries. Each individual costume plate is sold for 40 centimes (45 centimes expedited)." The first volumes were published by Aubert and later volumes by Journal amusant, finishing in 1863.

François-Claudius Compte-Calix (1813–1880) was a French genre painter and fashion illustrator. He first exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1840, and later in the International Exhibition at Paris in 1867. He provided fashion plates for the weekly fashion magazine Modes Parisiennes in the 1850s and 1860s, and also illustrated many albums of historical and regional fashions in special suites also published by the magazine entitled Musée de Costumes (Costume Museum) 1850, Directoire (Directory) 1851, Cour de France depuis Charles VII jusqu'a nos jours (French Court of Charles VII to our Times) 1861, Travestissements Elégants (Fancy Dress) 1864, L'époque de Luis XVI (Era of Louis XVI) 1869, etc.

Blue leather spine rubbed and chipped at top and bottom, gilt title reading Costumes Modernes: France on spine, blue buckram boards rubbed and bumped, watermarked silk endpapers spotted, AEG, very light scattered foxing to the plates, but all with superb, vivid hand colour.

A very good suite of regional French costume plates from this rare set.