FOREST, Eugène-Hippolyte

Musée Populaire

Paris: Chez Aubert, 1835. Item #06686

A Parisian Theater of Illusion - Six Transforming Lithographs from the Aubert Circle
A Rare Complete Suite of Hand-Colored “Images à Système,”
Satirizing Marriage, Money, and the Myth of Paris

[FOREST, Eugène-Hippolyte]. Musée Populaire. Paris: Chez Aubert, rue du Croissant; lithographed by V.-H. Delaporte, after designs attributed to Eugène Forest, [ca. 1835–1845].

Folio (10 1/2 x 14 inches; 267 x 356 mm.). A complete suite of six hand-colored lithographs with movable flaps, each revealing a second, contrasting scene beneath. Each plate with printed captions and mounted on stubs. An excellent and unusually well-preserved set with the hand-coloring fresh and attractive. All of the flaps are present and functional. Some scattered marginal foxing, but not affecting the colored images.

Mid-20th century red cloth over boards, front cover with black morocco label lettered in gilt: “Musée Populaire.”

An Exceptionally Rare Survival of Early Interactive Print Culture. A remarkably scarce and visually striking survival from the great age of Parisian caricature: a complete set of six “images à transformation” - mechanical lithographs in which a lifted flap reveals a second, often ironic or subversive scene.

Issued by the celebrated publisher Aubert, at the center of the Philipon/Daumier/Grandville milieu (La Caricature, Le Charivari), these prints belong to a short-lived but highly inventive genre that combined: social satire; theatrical staging, and a proto-interactive mechanism.

Long before the illustrated book embraced novelty and movement, these sheets invited the viewer to participate in the joke - to uncover, quite literally, the truth beneath appearances.

The Plates:
1. Père avare / Enfant prodigue
Miserly restraint contrasted with reckless excess - an archetypal moral inversion.
2. Avant le mariage / Après le mariage
Courtship idealism gives way to domestic reality; one of the most biting commentaries in the series.
3. Le matin / Le soir
The transformation of daily life - freshness into fatigue, illusion into routine.
4. Tout ce qui reluit n’est pas or
A visual proverb: glittering appearances dissolve into disappointment.
5. La mariée de ville / La mariée de village
Urban sophistication versus rustic innocence - an elegant satire on fashion, class, and expectation.
6. Un an à Paris / Un jour à Paris
Perhaps the sharpest plate: the promise of Parisian life set against its immediate disillusionment.
Artistic & Historical Context.

The designs are attributed to Eugène Forest, a contributor to the Aubert circle, and a frequent co-artist of Grandville. They were lithographed by Victor-Hippolyte Delaporte, whose workshop was closely associated with the production of caricature prints for the Parisian press.

The series stands at the intersection of Grandville’s transformation imagery and the moralizing tradition of French popular prints and early forms of optical and mechanical amusement prints. Yet unlike purely decorative or juvenile works, these are unmistakably aimed at an adult, bourgeois audience, engaging directly with the anxieties of Marriage;
Money, Social Mobility and the seductive myth of Paris itself.

Complete sets are decidedly rare: we can find no complete examples in libraries & institutions worlwide. A few institutions (e.g., Carnavalet) have single sheets only.
A complete suite of six, intact and functional, is a great rarity on the market. These are not merely prints - they are performances. Each sheet stages a small drama of expectation and revelation, inviting the viewer to lift the curtain and confront the truth beneath polite society. In their wit, construction, and survival, they represent one of the most engaging - and elusive - forms of early 19th-century visual culture.

Price: $8,500.00