Mœurs Britanniques
Paris: Chez Aubert & Cie., 1851. Item #06867
The French Take on the British…
Fifteen Hilarious Lithographs Caricaturing British Life and Manners
CHAM (pseudonym of Charles Amédée de Noé). Mœurs Britanniques. Paris: Chez Aubert & Cie., n.d. [ca. 1850].
First edition. Large folio (13 1/4 x 10 inches; 336 x 252 mm.). Lithographed pictorial title and fifteen numbered lithographed plates, each with printed caption below.
Publisher's original cream-colored glazed lithographed boards, upper cover reproducing the pictorial title design. A remarkably fine, clean and fresh copy.
A wonderfully entertaining series of fifteen caricatures devoted entirely to the peculiarities of the British, as observed from across the Channel by one of nineteenth-century France's most popular comic artists.
Cham turns his irreverent eye upon an extraordinary cross-section of British life and manners: marriage, Quakers, army recruiting, museums, philanthropy, prize-fighting, Scottish dress, the national costume, incomprehensible English conversation, the stocks, turnpikes, Chelsea pensioners, and finally Smithfield Market.
The splendid pictorial title sets the tone for the album. The British lion sits beside the Union Jack, with a diminutive figure perched upon its mane, while immediately before it lies a tied bundle prominently marked “IRLANDE” - a pointed visual joke upon Anglo-Irish relations that would have been immediately recognizable to Cham's contemporary French audience.
The individual plates continue the sustained Anglo-French satire. In Un Costume National, an elegantly dressed English gentleman encounters a ragged Irishman and asks whether he comes from a hot country, to which the latter replies, “Non, monsieur, je suis Irlandais.” Baragouin Britannique makes comic capital of the Frenchman's traditional bewilderment at the English language, while Les Hauts Grades lampoons the spectacular proportions of British military headgear. Elsewhere Cham takes aim at Quakers, army recruiting, the English enthusiasm for boxing, Scottish national dress, philanthropy, public punishment, toll roads, Chelsea pensioners and the notorious livestock market at Smithfield.
Taken together, the fifteen scenes form a delightful visual survey of British national character, institutions, dress and customs as perceived through decidedly French eyes.
CHAM (pseudonym of Charles Amédée de Noé) (1818-1879) was one of the most prolific and popular French caricaturists of the nineteenth century. He published his first book, Monsieur Lajaunisse, in 1839 and from 1843 contributed regularly to Le Charivari, producing thousands of drawings and lithographs satirizing contemporary politics, society, manners and everyday life.
Of Cham, Ray notes that several artists “followed in the wake of Daumier and Gavarni. Among the most attractive of the former is 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, pp. 155-156).
Published by Aubert, the celebrated Parisian house closely associated with the golden age of French caricature and with such artists as Daumier, Gavarni and Grandville, Mœurs Britanniques is especially appealing for its sustained concentration upon Britain. Rather than merely including occasional English subjects among a broader collection of social satires, Cham devotes the entire album to British manners and national stereotypes.
Copies were also produced with the plates colored by hand; Bobins records a colored copy (III, 842). The present copy is the uncolored issue, the lithographs displaying the strength and subtlety of Cham's original draughtsmanship to particularly good effect.
The Plates:
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.
Smithfield Market.
A remarkably fine and fresh copy of Cham's delightful visual satire on Britain and the British—fifteen wonderfully observed caricatures ranging from Quakers, prize-fighters and Highlanders to Irishmen, Chelsea pensioners and the inhabitants of Smithfield Market, preserved in the striking original glazed pictorial boards.
Ray, The Art of the French Illustrated Book, 1700 to 1914, pp. 155-156.
Bobins III, 842 (colored copy).
Price: $1,500.00