Ce Que Parler Veut Dire
Paris: Paris: Chez Aubert gal: Vero-Dodat, 1837. Item #04830
One of Frédéric Bouchot's Greatest Comic Suites
Thirty Brilliant Hand-Colored Lithographs
Exploring the Difference Between What We Say - and What We Really Mean
BOUCHOT, Frédéric, illustrator. Ce Que Parler Veut Dire (What People Really Mean). [Paris: Chez Aubert, Galerie Véro-Dodat, 1837].
Folio (13 15/16 x 10 1/8 inches; 355 x 257 mm.). Complete. Thirty superb hand-colored lithograph plates, all heightened with gum arabic. Plates signed "Bouchot," with the exception of numbers 22, 27, and 28. Most plates interleaved. Plate 12 with a neatly repaired three-quarter inch tear in the lower blank margin. Occasional very light marginal spotting, otherwise an unusually bright, fresh, and handsome copy.
Contemporary French maroon scored morocco over marbled boards, spine with five raised bands ruled and lettered in gilt, marbled endpapers.
A beautiful example of one of the rarest and most entertaining of all the hand-colored French caricature albums published during the great age of Romantic lithography.
French Romantic lithography reached its artistic zenith between the 1820s and the 1840s, a period that Gordon Ray rightly described as "perhaps the greatest of all schools in the history of the medium." During these remarkable decades artists such as Daumier, Gavarni, Monnier, and Bouchot transformed everyday Parisian life into a theater of wit, social observation, and visual comedy. While Daumier often relied upon savage political satire and Gavarni became the supreme chronicler of fashionable society, Frédéric Bouchot developed a more intimate and psychologically subtle form of humor, exposing the enormous gulf between polite conversation and genuine thought.
The title itself encapsulates the conceit of the series. Every plate presents two simultaneous conversations. Beneath the polished phrases actually spoken appears the brutally honest sentiment the speaker is secretly thinking. Compliments become insults; declarations of affection conceal greed; offers of generosity disguise selfish calculation; professions of friendship mask jealousy, vanity, ambition, or financial interest. The result is an extraordinarily modern study of social hypocrisy that remains as amusing today as when first published.
Bouchot's achievement lies not merely in the captions but in the remarkable sophistication of the lithographs themselves. Each composition unfolds like a miniature theatrical scene, with carefully orchestrated gestures, glances, entrances, and interiors. Rather than employing grotesque caricature, Bouchot depends upon subtle facial expression and body language, allowing the figures themselves to betray the emotions hidden beneath polite convention.
The plates also constitute an exceptional visual record of bourgeois Paris during the July Monarchy. Fashionable drawing rooms, salons, bedrooms, gardens, and reception rooms are rendered with meticulous attention to furniture, wallpapers, mirrors, draperies, costumes, hairstyles, and domestic decoration. The transparent hand-coloring -remarkably delicate throughout - enhances these richly observed interiors while preserving the velvety softness of the original lithographic crayon. The freshness of the impressions and the remarkable quality of the coloring make this one of the most visually attractive examples of Bouchot's work we have encountered.
Issued by Aubert from the celebrated Galerie Véro-Dodat, the series belongs to the same extraordinary artistic milieu that produced the masterpieces of Daumier, Gavarni, Monnier, and Grandville. Unlike most political caricatures of the period, however, Ce Que Parler Veut Dire addresses universal human behavior rather than contemporary events, which explains why its wit remains timeless nearly two centuries after publication.
Frédéric Bouchot (1798-after 1850) was among the leading lithographic caricaturists of his generation, contributing regularly to Le Charivari, La Caricature, and the Journal pour rire, while also producing numerous independently issued suites for Aubert. Although now less celebrated than Daumier or Gavarni, his finest albums rank among the most elegant productions of French Romantic lithography and are increasingly appreciated for their refined draftsmanship, theatrical compositions, and acute observation of nineteenth-century social life.
Exceptionally rare. OCLC records only three institutional copies worldwide, at the Getty Research Institute, the Bibliothèque Cantonale et Universitaire de Lausanne, and the Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin.
Curiously, all three institutional records describe the work as containing thirty hand-colored lithographs, while both Hiler and Lipperheide record only twenty-eight colored plates, suggesting bibliographical uncertainty regarding the original issue.
An exceptionally rare and visually superb masterpiece of French social satire, preserving one of Frédéric Bouchot's most sophisticated and delightful explorations of bourgeois manners, fashionable society, and the endless comedy of everyday conversation.
The plates - all with the headline "Ce Que Parler Veut Dire" (What People Really Mean):
1. Cette toilette vous sied à ravir... / Vous avez l'air d'une borne habillée…
(This outfit becomes you perfectly... / You look like a dressed-up milestone!)
2. Mon, mon ami, cela serait folie, je ne veux rien... / Si tu ne me l’achête pas, nous verrons...
(My friend, it would be folly, I do not want anything ... / If you don't buy it, we'll see ...)
3. Vous nous restez, n’est-ce pas?... Allons, acceptez sans façon / Ennuyeux personnages!... Mon dîner va être trop
court...
(Do stay with us... don't stand on ceremony.)
4. Mais sans doute nous lui ferons faire son chemin... / Je t’enverrai aux grandes Indiens, beau cousin de ma femme...
(We'll soon put him on the right road... "I'll pack you off to the Indies, my dear wife's handsome cousin!"
5. Vous vous ressemblez comme deux gouttes de lait / Crois ça et bois de l’eau!...
(You are as alike as two peas in a pod... / Believe that—and you'll believe anything!)
6. Vraiment, on vous prendrait pour les deux soeurs... / Vieille folle, va!...
(One could take you for sisters... / Silly old fool!)
7. Vous êtes lég re comme une plume! / Ouf quelle charette!
(You are as light as a feather! / Good heavens, what a cart-horse!)
8. Je suis toujours satisfaite de savoir mon mari avec vous... / J’ésp re bien le brouiller avec une aussi mauvaise
connaissance
(I only hope I can make him quarrel with such a dreadful acquaintance.)
9. Il ne vous faut plus que l’air de la campagne / Pour mourir...
(All you need now is some country air... / ... to finish you off!)
10. Monsieur, puisque c’est la volonté de les parens / Puisque vous êtes riche et que je suis pauvre
(Since it is my parents' wish... / Since you're rich and I'm poor.)
11. Ch re amie, signez mon bonheur / Signe ma fortune, vieille folle
(Dear friend, sign my happiness / Sign my fortune, old mad woman…)
12. Ruinée!... pauvre amie... / Tu ne m’écraseras plus avec ton luxe
(Ruined! ... poor friend ... / You will not crush me anymore with your luxury…)
13. Enchanté, Madame, de vous rencontrer... / Le diable l’emporte, je la croyais v pres
(Confound it - I thought she was at Vespers!)
14. Sublime! Admirable! Pyramidal!... / Je n’ai jamais rien entendu d’aussi soporifique
(Sublime! Admirable! Pyramidal! ... / I've never heard anything so boring…)
15. Quel bonheur... je ne t’attendais pas sitôt / Comment vais je faire avec Jules
(What happiness ... I was not expecting you soon / What am I going to do about Jules?)
16. Je chante, mon oncle, parceque je suis contente / Et que c’est notre signal
(I sing, Uncle, because I'm happy / And that's our signal)
17. Verser encore cent mille francs et l’affaire devient superbe!... / J’ai mangé le premier capital et j’en veux un
second...
(For another hundred thousand francs the business will become superb! ... / I've already swallowed the first investment; now I want another.)
18. Votre fils, Mr le Comte a les plus belles dispositions... / A devenir un crétin comme son p re
(Your son, the Count has the most beautiful disposition he shows the greatest promise of becoming an idiot like his father.)
19. Votre demande m’honore... assurément... mais ma fille est encore si jeune!... / Tu es trop laid, trop béte et surtout
trop pauvre...
(Your request honors me ... certainly ... but my daughter is still so young! ... / You are too ugly, too stupid and
especially too poor ...
20. Cette pauvre amie, femme de chambre!! Je vais parter pour toi / Elle me compromettrait, je la ferai chasser
(This maid - my poor friend!! I will speak to her / She'll compromise me—I must dismiss her.)
21. Le’n’est rien Madame... peine vous ai-je sentie... / Le diable t’emporte, maudit éléphant!
(It's nothing, Madame—I scarcely felt you... / Confound you, you cursed elephant!)
22. J’aurai bien de la peine me consoler de cette perte douloureuse / Me voila veuve et hériti re
(I will have a hard time consoling myself for this painful loss / Here I am a widow and an heiress…)
23. Ne faites donc pas attention, ce n’est rien... / Vieux maladroit il n’en fait jamais d’autres
(Do not pay any attention, it's nothing ... / That clumsy old fool never does anything else!)
24. C’est une bonne fortune pour moi de reconduire madame votre soeur / A l’autre bout de Paris... c’est amusant!
(It's a pleasure to escort your sister... / ... all the way across Paris—what fun!)
25. Oh mon! Oh mon! mon cher... cette fois... je ne souffrirai pas... / Paye! Paye conscrit!...
(Oh my! Oh my! my dear ... this time ... I will not suffer ... / Pay up, young recruit!)
26. Oh! Oui, Mamzelle, c’est par par intérêt au moins... / C’est l’chat!... vieux grigoux, sans ton testament je te lacherais
joliment
(Oh yes, Mademoiselle, purely from self-interest... / It's only the cat! You old miser—without your will I'd soon leave you!)
27. Mon cher ami je suis horriblement g né en ce moment... / Ce pr ter c’est donner, je serai toujours g né pour toi,
mon cher...
(I'm terribly embarrassed for money at the moment... / Lending is giving—I shall always be 'embarrassed' whenever I see you, my dear!)
28. Allons adieu... ã bient r / A jamais... je vais vous signaler au concierge, mes petits amis
(Good-bye—for ever! I'll report you to the concierge, my fine friends!)
29. C’est drõle, mon pere, je n’ai rien entendu... / C’est lui!...
(It's funny, father, I did not hear anything ... / It's him!)
30. Comment donc Madame, mais nous r glerons ça quand vous voudrez / Ah! Si j’avais su, je t’aurais fait manquer ta
soirée...
(So how about Madame, we'll settle it when you want / If only I'd known, I'd have ruined your evening!)
Bobins V, 1530; Hiler p. 106 (28 colored plates only); Lipperheide 3574 (28 colored plates only). Not in Colas.
Price: $9,500.00