L'Ecole des Voyageurs
Paris: Dupin & Cie., 1839. Item #06209
'The School of Travelers'
Twelve brilliant hand-colored lithographs of early 19th-century travel and misadventure.
BOUCHOT, Frédéric. L'Ecole des Voyageurs. (The School of Travelers). Paris: Dupin & Cie., [ca. 1839].
Folio (13 3/4 x 10 inches; 350 x 254 mm.). Twelve superb hand colored lithograph plates all heightened with gum arabic. All plates mounted on stubs.
Mid-19th-century quarter red straight-grain morocco over marbled boards, smooth spine lettered horizontally in gilt. Spine slightly faded with a small stain.
A splendid and scarce suite of twelve large hand-colored lithographs satirizing the trials, discomforts, and absurdities of travel. Issued at the height of French Romantic lithography, the series transforms everyday mishaps into staged comic theater. Passports forgotten, jolting coach rides, customs inspections, wretched inns, seasickness, snow, and endless petty indignities.
Bouchot delights in cramped interiors, flustered gestures, and the social comedy of people trying and failing to keep their dignity. Bouchot was among the leading French lithographic caricaturists of his time, a regular contributor to Le Charivari, La Caricature, and the Journal pour Rire. He also worked in close artistic proximity to Daumier and Gavarni, and his best albums, including this one, show the same sharp eye for social behavior and narrative timing that defines the period’s great comic lithography.
Rare. Paris Musées records only two plates in its collections. OCLC and KVK locate a single institutional holding, at the Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. We have encountered the work only once before, in 2002, in a private American collection.
The Plates:
1. Le Voyageur en Défaut (The Traveler in Default)
2. La Table D'Hôte (Au Relais) (The Table d'Hôte (At the Posting Inn)
3. Le Passe-Port Oubliè (The Forgotten Passport)
4. La Marche Forcée (The Forced March)
5. Le Coupé (The Coupé Coach)
6. Le Reveil (The Awakening)
7. La Douane (Customs Inspection)
8. La Banquette (The Roof Seat)
9. L'Auberge (The Inn)
10. Le Mal De Mer (Seasickness)
11. La Concurrence (The Competition)
12. La Neige (The Snowstorm)
Bobins V, 1531; Hiler, p. 106; Lippeheide II, 3576. Not in Colas.
Price: $4,850.00