Cent cinq costumes des départemens de la Seine Inférieure, du Calvados, de la Manche et de l’Orne
Paris: Durand ainé, 1830. Item #04827
The Finest Nineteenth-Century Survey of the Traditional Costume of Normandy
One Hundred and Five Beautifully Hand-Colored Plates by Lanté, Pécheux, and Gatine
[LANTÉ, Louis Marie; PÉCHEUX; and GATINE, George Jacques, illustrators]. Cent cinq costumes des départemens de la Seine Inférieure, du Calvados, de la Manche et de l'Orne. Paris: Durand Aîné, Rue de la Paix No. 4; Caen: Chez Mancel, [ca. 1830].
Second issue. Folio (12 7/8 x 9 1/4 inches; 327 x 235 mm.). Hand-colored engraved title and 105 superb hand-colored engraved costume plates, many heightened with gum arabic, engraved by George Jacques Gatine after drawings principally by Louis-Marie Lanté, with nineteen plates signed by Pécheux. Eight plates watermarked "J. Whatman" and seven "L & Conte."
Contemporary half tan calf over marbled boards, spine with seven shallow multi-ruled bands, decoratively tooled in black and lettered in gilt, marbled endpapers. Joints expertly and almost invisibly repaired.
A remarkably fresh, bright copy, the coloring exceptionally well preserved throughout.
Among the most beautiful French costume books of the Restoration period, this magnificent series preserves the remarkable diversity of traditional dress worn throughout Normandy during the opening decades of the nineteenth century. Comprising one hundred and five exquisitely hand-colored plates, it records the regional costumes of the Seine-Inférieure, Calvados, Manche, and Orne with an accuracy and elegance that have made the work the standard pictorial record of Norman costume.
The plates are remarkable not merely as studies of dress but as portraits of an entire regional culture. Fisherwomen, market girls, servants, dairymaids, lace-makers, washerwomen, peasants, brides, and young women in festive attire are shown against carefully observed landscapes, village streets, churchyards, beaches, and harbors that firmly anchor each costume within its local setting. Each district possessed its own distinctive style of dress, and nowhere was this individuality more striking than in the extraordinary variety of lace caps and elaborate headdresses that became the hallmark of Norman costume.
Louis-Marie Lanté ranks among the foremost costume artists of the early nineteenth century. A gifted watercolorist and illustrator closely associated with Le Journal des Dames et des Modes, he possessed an exceptional sensitivity to color, textile, and fashionable detail. His graceful figures combine documentary precision with artistic refinement, transforming what might otherwise have been ethnographic studies into works of considerable aesthetic charm.
The engravings were executed by the celebrated George Jacques Gatine, universally regarded as one of the greatest interpreters of French costume illustration. Gatine's delicate line, together with the sumptuous contemporary hand-coloring, captures every nuance of embroidery, lace, silk, linen, and wool with remarkable freshness. Many of the plates are further enriched by careful heightening in gum arabic, lending a subtle brilliance to ribbons, aprons, jewelry, and decorative fabrics. The result is one of the finest examples of French color-plate production during the Restoration period.
The work first appeared in Paris in 1827 under the title Costumes des femmes du pays de Caux, et de plusieurs autres parties de l'ancienne province de Normandie, accompanied by descriptive letterpress written by La Mésangère.
The present volume represents the much scarcer second issue, published without the descriptive text but retaining the original engraved plates and employing the former frontispiece as the title-page. As Colas observed, the impressions in this second issue are fully equal in quality to those of the first edition: "Les planches de cette seconde émission me paraissent aussi bonnes que celles de la première."
Beyond its artistic achievement, the volume possesses considerable historical importance. During the first decades of the nineteenth century, industrialization and improved communications rapidly began eroding local traditions throughout France. Lanté's survey therefore preserves, often for the last time, the extraordinary diversity of regional costume that had evolved over centuries. Many of these distinctive costumes disappeared only a generation later, making this collection an indispensable visual record of a vanishing way of life.
The present example is particularly appealing for the freshness of its coloring and the exceptional brightness of the impressions. The vivid reds, blues, greens, violets, and delicate flesh tones remain remarkably vibrant, while the landscapes retain their subtle atmospheric quality. The plates display precisely the refined draftsmanship and elegant coloring that established this publication as one of the masterpieces of French costume illustration.
An exceptionally handsome copy of one of the great French costume books of the nineteenth century, uniting artistic distinction, documentary importance, and remarkable visual appeal.
Colas 1770; Hiler, p. 526; Lipperheide 1196; Bobins IV, 1241.
Price: $12,500.00