CHAM (pseudonym of Amédée de Noé)

Mœurs Britanniques

Paris: Chez Aubert & Cie., 1850. Item #05311

Fifteen Hand-Colored Lithographed Plates Caricaturing the British

[CHAM, illustrator]. Mœurs Britanniques. Paris: Chez Aubert & Cie., [n.d., ca. 1850].

Large folio (12 7/8 x 9 5/8 inches; 327 x 244 mm.). Hand-colored lithographed title and fifteen numbered hand-colored lithographed plates, heightened with gum arabic. Publisher's advertisement leaf at end. Small neat (1 1/8 inch) repair to top margin of plate 12 (not affecting image), some minor and mainly marginal scattered foxing, otherwise an excellent example.

Contemporary quarter dark brown ribbed cloth over marbled boards. Some wear to corners and edges of boards.

The plates are captioned: “Une femme bien attachée;” “Le Quaker;” “Le Recruteur;” “Visite au Musée;” “Mariage d’inclination;” “Les Hauts grades;” “Philanthropie. Bien entendue,” “Les Boxeurs;” “L’Écossais;” “Un Costume national;” “Baragouin Britannique;” “In the Stocks;” “Le Péage du turn-pike;” “L’Invalide de Chelsea;” and “Smithfied Market.”

Of Amédée de Noé, ”known as Cham (that is, Ham, the son of Noah)…it was said that he had ‘an idea a day’ for Le charivari. A good proportion of his thousands of lithographs were gathered into albums. His contributions to the Album du siège (173), in which Daumier was his collaborator, are typical of his work” (Ray, The Art of the French Illustrated Book, pp. 155-156).

Price: $4,500.00