MONTAUT, Henri de

Vertus & Qualités

Paris: chez Arnauld de Vresse, 1860. Item #02896

Extremely Scarce
Children Satirize Good Adult Behavior

MONTAUT, Henri de. Vertus & Qualités. Dessins Composés par... Paris: chez Arnauld de Vresse, n.d. [c. 1860s].

Colored issue. Oblong folio (11/4 x 15 7/8 in; 285 x 403 mm). Twelve hand-colored lithographed plates with interleaves. Each plate is imprinted "chez Aubert," the renowned Parisian printmaking house who also issued the book with plain (tinted) lithographs.

Original cloth with blind-stamped arabesque panel enclosing an elaborately gilt centerpiece with title within.
A few very light marginal finger-marks, inner hinges expertly strengthened.

A particularly attractive colored issue, with the hand-coloring fresh, nuanced, and carefully applied across all twelve plates. As seen in the images, Montaut’s palette favors soft pastels and jewel tones - rose, celadon, citron, and powder blue - applied with restraint that preserves the lithographic line while heightening the rococo theatricality of the scenes.

The figures’ powdered wigs, brocaded silks, and embroidered waistcoats are rendered with a delicacy that underscores the book’s conscious evocation of eighteenth-century taste.

The plates present children costumed à la Ancien Régime, staged in interior and garden settings that recall the pastoral and courtly idiom of François Boucher (1703-1770). Each scene allegorizes a moral quality - such as courtesy, generosity, courage, or talent - through gently comic role-play, the humor arising from the contrast between adult virtue and childish imitation. Montaut’s wit is affectionate rather than satirical, aligning the work more closely with didactic charm than caricatural bite.

Of bibliographical interest, each plate bears the imprint “chez Aubert”, linking the work to the celebrated Parisian print publisher Maison Aubert, even though the book itself was issued by Arnauld de Vresse. Aubert also issued the suite in a plain (tinted) lithographic state; fully hand-colored copies such as this are therefore considerably scarcer and visually superior. The present copy retains its original decorative cloth, with a blind-stamped arabesque panel framing an elaborate gilt centrepiece title - an unusually ornate publisher’s binding that complements the imagery.

Vertus & Qualités is the companion volume to Montaut’s Défauts et Vices, together forming a moral diptych of virtues and failings rendered through costume fantasy and theatrical gesture. While Montaut is best known today for his later work as an illustrator of Jules Verne (alongside Riou and Roux), albums such as this demonstrate his versatility as a designer of charming, decorative lithographs aimed at a refined family audience.

Excessively scarce, with OCLC recording only one copy in institutional holdings worldwide, at Princeton.

Henri de Montaut (1825- c. 1890) was a caricaturist, writer and French illustrator. He was responsible, along with other artists such as Riou and Roux, for illustrations to the novels of Jules Verne. He was a contributor to Journal amusant, Journal pour rire, and La Vie parisienne, and editor-in-chief of Le Journal Illustré.

The plates:

1. Humanité - Générosité
2. Etude - Talente
3. Politesse Amabilite
4. Travail - Savoir
5. Dévouement - Générosité
6. Valeur - Courage
7. Adresse - Précision
8. La Propreté
9. Plaison - Philanthropie
10. Bonté - Bienfaisance
11. La Poiété
12. Le Dévouement.

Price: $4,800.00