[ANONYME], Paris

Lot 188
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Estimation :
400 - 420 EUR
[ANONYME], Paris
Set of 83 original photographs of Paris statues with decorations and handwritten illustrations Belle Époque (circa 1900). 11 boards. S.l., ca 1900. 35 x 26 cm (boards), about 6 x 8 cm (photos). Set of 83 original photographs on paper, spread over 11 plates, titled and illustrated by hand, ink and gouache. The photographs show personalities from the political world (Louis XIII, Louis XVIII, Charlemagne, Gambetta, B. Franklin, G. Washington,...), military (Lafayette, Marshal Moncey, Sergeant Bobillot, Flatters...), scientific (Pastor, Denis Papin, Claude Bernard, Arago, V. Haüy, Parmentier, Vaucanson, Charcot...), artistic (Rosa Bonheur, A. de Neuville, Charlet,...), literary or philosophical (Rousseau, Diderot, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, Voltaire, Lamartine, Balzac, Condorcet, A. Comte, H. Becque, Molière, Hugo...,) musical (Berlioz, Chopin, Gounod, Lully, César Franck,...) which were honored by statues throughout the capital. Some of these monuments were relocated or even melted down during the Second World War, so they no longer exist today. Particular attention has been paid here to the realization of the titles, all of which benefit from a typography of various styles (Gothic, fantasy, with illuminations, with frames, with characters, etc.). At the top right of each plate is a different version of the Parisian coat of arms, sometimes accompanied by the motto: "Fluctuat nec mergitur". Very interesting ensemble, which reflects a certain social diffusion of photographic practice - among the bourgeois elite - at the end of the 19th century, in line with the evolution of techniques, both in terms of photography and printing processes. Equipped with increasingly user-friendly devices, many amateurs immortalized small and large moments of daily life, constituting souvenir albums and private collections that consecrated the now essential role of image in Belle Époque culture. The author of these photographs, who lacked neither humour nor tale
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