RICHEPIN (Jean)

Lot 252
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Estimation :
1900 - 2000 EUR
RICHEPIN (Jean)
The little Parisian breadwinners. Original etchings by Georges Jeanniot. Paris, engraved for Jean Borderel, 1927. In-4 - 22.5 x 27 cm. Original edition printed in only 30 numbered copies, 27 on vellum and 3 on Japan, this one is a present copy. Collection of 29 poems engraved by E. Lartaud. Illustrated book with 70 original etchings by Georges Jeanniot (29 vignettes and 29 off-text accompanying the poems, 6 additional headings and 6 off-text were intended to illustrate 6 poems never completed), print by Leblanc and Trautmann. This very rare work was conceived in 1913, for the poems and the execution of etchings, but its publication was much later. Indeed, according to the explanatory note placed at the end, "The war and the post-war period did not allow the engraving of the text to be completed until 1925-1926". The events and the declining health of "Master Richepin", who died on December 12, 1926, i. e. shortly before the publication, also deprived the book of 6 of the texts initially envisaged. A charming poetic collection that tenderly evokes the small trades in Paris. Under the alert, sometimes cheeky pen of the author, the picturesque world of shops (the chestnut merchant, the bouquetière, the clothes merchant,...), crafts (the porcelain mender, the glazier,...), services (the boot shiner, the brochure dispenser, the door opener,...) comes alive....), of those who make the spectacle of the street (the man displays, the portraitist, the herculean,...), without forgetting a whole cohort of modest shadow workers (the site guard, the bagotto maker, the snow sweepers, etc). Ode by writing and image to these activities typical of Belle Époque Paris, the work nevertheless subtly reveals its daily hardness and, in relief, the contrast with the opulence of the wealthy, which are mixed with the characters delicately sketched over the pages through the magnificent etchings of Jeanniot. Elegant contemporary binding, original creation by Hélène Potin (2019)
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