SILHOUETTE (La), Journal des caricatures, beaux-arts, dessin - Lot 65

SILHOUETTE (La), Journal des caricatures, beaux-arts, dessins, moeurs, théâtres, etc., Paris, rue des Fossés Saint-Germainl'Auxerrois [and] rue Neuve-des-Petits-Champs, 1829-1830. Paris, rue des Fossés Saint-Germainl'Auxerrois [et] rue Neuve-des-Petits-Champs, 1829-1830. 4 parts bound in 2 vols. in-4, blue long-grained half-maroq, corners, spines decorated throughout, untrimmed, 52 blue covers ill. cons. (Mercier). COMPLETE, EXTREMELY RARE COLLECTION of this satirical publication, the first caricature journal published in France. It paved the way for L'Artiste, La Caricature and Charivari. It contains 105 lithographs on white, some colored. Grandville contributed nine plates to the journal: the first two are colored pen-and-ink lithographs; the other seven are in black (lithographs by V. Ratier). La Silhouette marks the seizure of power by the new generation, born under the Empire and freed from the memory of the Revolution. It was politically hostile to the Restoration government. Daumier made his debut (3 plates), including his first lithograph entitled Passe ton Chemin; cochon (volume III, p. 39), with Monnier and Grandville, Raffet, Pigalle, Traviès, Johannot - all in their twenties. Grandville stigmatized the enemy and summed up the spirit of the newspaper in the lithograph published on August 12, 1830 under the title: Eteignons les lumières et rallumons le feu! An assembly of figures, their heads like bellows, bustle around a pyre into which books by Béranger, Volney and Paul-Louis Courier are thrown... Balzac, leader of the pack. Among the founders were Emile de Girardin and Balzac. The latter published his Etude de moeurs par les gants, Philosophie de la toilette, Physiologie gastronomique and Des Artistes, among others. "Balzac often wrote here, evoking political caricaturists and asserting, with remarkable prescience, that their art was a power" (Adhémar, Honoré Daumier, p. 13). Thus, the army of laughter that would soon storm the Louis-Philippard fortress with pears and Caricature was already united in this first satirical newspaper. Some of the illustrations are still famous, such as the Marquise de Philipon, with her small convex mirror set in place of her face. The first issues were more literary, with moving lithographs such as Johannot's for Bürger's Eléonore. When the illustrations became more daring and political, notably that of Charles X as a Jesuit, the magazine attracted the attention of the censors. A perfectly preserved copy WITH ITS DELIVERY COVERS (which were missing from the Dumas coll.), and containing a few plates in two or three copies (black and colored, white or chine), including pl. III of the first vol. "Marquise" in three states (2 colored), one of them with the face cut out and replaced by a small mirror held in place by a collage on the reverse of the lithograph. Complete with titles (and tables, which do not exist for vols. I and IV, as indicated by Carteret). Vicaire specifies, with regard to the plates, that "the Bibliothèque nationale possesses the text of all four volumes of La Silhouette, but none of the lithographs". In addition, we have enclosed the following items: - The prospectus for this publication - A hundred-franc share in the "La Silhouette" newspaper company subscribed by M. Emile de Girardin, with his autograph signature and those of the publication's managers. Provenance : - BIBLIOTHEQUE P. VILLEBOEUF. Carteret III, 563; Vicaire VII, 500; Ray French illustrated Book no. 146.