GAVARNI, Paul [pseudonym of Guillaume Sulpice Chevallier]

Les Étudiants de Paris [&] Le Carnaval à Paris [&] Les Débardeurs

Paris: Chez Aubert, 1840. Item #06246

Sixty Superb Hand Colored Lithographs from three of Gavarni's Most Celebrated Series

GAVARNI, Paul (pseudonym of Guillaume Sulpice Chevallier). Les Étudiants de Paris [&] Le Carnaval à Paris [&] Les Débardeurs. Paris: Chez Aubert, 1840–1842.

Folio (13 × 9 in.; 330 × 250 mm). An exceptional compilation of sixty hand-colored lithographs, each heightened with gum arabic, all by Paul Gavarni. A few plates with minor foxing to blank margins.

Contemporary quarter black diced calf over patterned black paper-covered boards, extremities a little rubbed.

A striking and well-assembled album - sixty vivid, gum-arabic-heightened lithographs by Gavarni, drawn from three of his most celebrated series. Together they offer a lively social commentary and a cohesive survey of the artist’s sharp eye for character and nuance, realized in brilliantly hand-colored lithographs of great visual appeal and presence.

Contents:

Les Étudiants de Paris (1839–40): 16 plates (of 60) - nos. 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, 15, 16, 18, 20, 21, 22, 25 (stained at top blank fore-margin, just touching image), 30, 31.

Le Carnaval à Paris (1841–42): 16 plates (of 30) - nos. 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14, 17, 19, 20, 22, 23, 27.

Les Débardeurs (1840–42): 28 plates (of 66) - nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 15, 18, 19, 20, 22, 27, 33, 34, 43, 45, 47 (slightly worn at fore-margin), 53, 54, 55, 56 (slightly worn at fore-margin), 63.


Les Étudiants de Paris captures the comedic, sometimes absurd, university life of Paris’s law and medical students—a defining early Gavarni series.

Le Carnaval à Paris explores the flamboyant, masked festivities of Parisian carnival, blending costume, satire, and street theater—these sixteen plates suggest sequential extraction from the original issue.

Les Débardeurs offers spirited depictions of carnival dock-working women—humorous, lively, and deeply grounded in Gavarni’s keen observational style.


Armelhault & Bocher: “Les Étudiants de Paris” nos. 626–657; “Le Carnaval à Paris” nos. 729–755; “Les Débardeurs” nos. 800–866. Colas: 1292 (Étudiants), 1295 (Carnaval), 1298 (Débardeurs); Lipperheide: Lc 2312 (Étudiants), Lc 2315 (Carnaval), Lc 2317 (Débardeurs).

Price: $6,500.00