Almanach galant moral et critique en Vaudevilles. Paris: Boulanger, [1789].
24mo (97 x 56 mm). 1 leaf (recto blank, verso with p. 2 of a publisher’s advertisement), etched title, signed by Queverdo after Berthaut, printed on thick card paper and backed in plain paper, 6-leaf letterpress calendar for 1790, the rest entirely engraved: 24 leaves (no signatures), paginated [3]-61, 12 full-page unsigned etched plates (by Jean Dambrun after Queverdo), the pagination including the plates, counted as one page each (the sheet for pages ”13-14”and “51-52” misimposed and misbound each in the other’s place); pp. 21-44, containing 12 leaves of monthly tables of gains and losses (Pertes et gains, with its own imprint), bound at end instead of in the middle of the almanac quire as intended; 8 blank leaves of heavy pale green paper bound at end. Contemporary accounting notes on first page of the Pertes et gains; inked tax stamp on title. Contemporary (publisher’s) red morocco, covers gilt paneled, smooth spine gold-tooled with green morocco lettering piece, board edges with 3-part sleeve for stylus (lacking), bright blue endpapers, gilt edges, blue silk ribbon marker.***
A charming almanac with etched genre scenes of idealized Parisian life after François Marie Isidore Queverdo, the sought-after illustrator of almanachs galants, by the unrecognized engraver Jean Dambrun. This copy has an unrecorded early state of the plates in pure etching.
That the etchings were the work of Jean Dambrun (1741-ca. 1808) is documented by the Inventaire du Fonds Français of the Département des estampes of the Bibliothèque nationale de France, which holds a collection of his etchings. Dambrun was “one of the master illustrators of the 18th century... It was in his vignettes that he showed his full potential ... His almanacs [which were all published by Boulanger] merit special mention: they are ornamented by vignettes in a very reduced format, which offer a faithful mirror of French society at the end of the ancien régime ... all as if viewed through the large end of a telescope” (IFF V, pp. 433-4, transl.).
The title is displayed on a large drape hanging in a bookseller’s shop. Looking rather ethereal in this etched state, the monthly scenes depict candy-sellers (January), ice-skating (February), a carnival scene of masked revelers in and atop a carriage (March), female flower vendors (April), a May Dance, a dip in a stream (June), horse-back riding, harvesting, street theater, drinkers in an outdoor cafe, chestnut-vendors, and “the departure from the countryside.” Each etching is accompanied by light verses, many with double entendres, to be sung to popular melodies.
While a few copies were known, including the BnF’s suite, with Dambrun’s plates avant la lettre (of which Grand-Carteret illustrates one plate), our copy may be unique in having the plates before engraving.
Comparison of our copy to other almanacs with the same title highlights characteristics of the publishing of almanachs galants, which was the domain of relieurs-doreurs or stationers rather than book printers. Different sheets of text or engravings were often issued under the same title, either because the almanac functioned as a periodical (see for example, the Almanach galant des costumes français, our SN 4325), or because the publishers mixed and matched different plates, calendars, sheets of text or music and accounting tables, apparently opportunistically, depending on what was at hand.
Thus the present title was reissued over a few years, with new calendars, different plates, and different texts: copies with calendars for 1779 are held by the BnF and Watson Library (acquired from us), and the bibliographies and catalogues cited below describe copies with calendars for 1780, 1785 and 1786. The plates of the Watson Library copy are in reverse, as compared to this copy, in which the copperplates match the illustrations in Grand-Carteret. The Watson copy also has a different text; only the titles of the poems appear to be the same. The text of the present copy corresponds to that cited by Savigny de Moncorps and Grand-Carteret. The advertisement leaf contains page two only of Boulanger’s advertisement, in which portions of the text appear to have been deleted from the copperplate.*
The early state of the plates, the absence of text on the title verso (see Savigny description), and the sketchy ad leaf may indicate that this copy was assembled (and bound rather carelessly, in the wrong order) from an odd array of sheets, possibly even waste sheets. Perhaps the new Revolution caused confusion in the shop?
Grand-Carteret 813; Cohen-de Ricci col. 25; Savigny de Moncorps, Almanachs illustrés du XVIIIe siècle (1909), no. 64, pp. 119-121 (”figures ... d’une finesse exquise”); Savigny de Moncorps, Coup d'oeil sur les almanachs illustrés du XVIIIe siècle ... Deuxième édition (1891), pp. 70-72; Inventaire du fonds français, graveurs du XVIIIe siècle, vol. V, p. 472, nos. 188-199, and pp. 433-434.
* Boulanger seems to have often included incomplete copies of his 2-page engraved advertisements in his almanacs. Of the 10 Boulanger almanacs that I have handled, three, including this one, contain incomplete ad leaves (the other two have page 1 only). Item #4468
Price: $1,800.00