Broadsides
For years I had thought that there must be some large sheets of fables done in France, perhaps by Pellerin of Épinal. Asking and looking finally paid off. I found a first sheet in Rome in 1998. A year later along the Seine I found in one hour both a group of Pellerin prints and a group of slightly smaller prints, the latter from the same set of which I had found one exemplar in Rome. This set has no identifying trademarks that I can discover, but many of their pieces are signed by a G. Fraipont.
I am calling these large colored sheets including illustration and text (of La Fontaine's fable) broadsides, but would be happy to learn a more correct term.
Georg Paul Busch 1750?
1750? Four broadsides of eight illustrations each by Georg Paul Busch from his 117 illustrations for the edition by Abbé Jean-Baptiste Morvan de Bellegarde (Amsterdam 1708). €60 from Antiquariat Kitzinger, Munich, July, '19.
I took time to scan and reproduce these lovely illustrations, which seem to have been presented two per page. Here sets of four are joined together. These four comprise Plates 13-24 and 33-36. Bellegarde is well represented in the collection, both in original editions and later re-editions and facsimiles.
Gordinne in Liège
1900? Three broadsides apparently from Gordinne in Liège. "Le Renard & la Cicogne, Fable de J. de La Fontaine." No. 104. €6.50 from Laur-art-collection, N.D. de Bordeville, France, through Ebay, March, '22. A second copy and "Le Lion et le Moucheron," No. 127, for €3.25 each from "antikobjet 84200" through Ebay, Dec., '22.
The artist has a good time with the contrast between small gnat and large lion! Here is the more recent copy of FS:
Lovely presentation of the hunter and the cook, both of whom seem to know quite well what they are doing in the kitchen. Though the paper is fragile, the artistic accomplishment here is of very high quality!
Now here is the earlier-acquired copy of FS:
Notice now the addition here of a "Gordinne a Liege" at the bottom left -- and of the artist's signature in the last panel"L'amouche" or "C amouche." It seems also that there are differences in color. Did they come from the printer or from the last 120 years of wear and tear and sunshine?
I found one detail so impressive that I could not pass it by. Catch the pose and attitude of the two characters in the second-to-last scene.
Imageries Réunies de Jarville-Nancy
1952? 16 Fable Posters by Paul Colin. €10 each at Marché Malassis, Saint-Ouen, July, '12. Sixteen posters out of a set of, apparently, 23. 11⅜" x 15¾". Imageries Réunies de Jarville-Nancy. All are between Planche Nr. 2001 and Planche Nr. 2023. Similar in concept to the broadsides of Maison Quantin and Pellerin, these lovely posters include a rectangle of print with a plain background somewhere in their portrait presentation of a single scene from the fable. Colin is admired as one of the greats of French poster-art. This find was the beginning of a lovely -- and expensive! -- Sunday at "Les Puces"! I found these on my own in the first shop I entered; Malassis is an antiques market on the way to my favorite book market, Marché Dauphine. I had to ask the dealer to hold these for me, and I would pick them up at the end of the day. They were a serious issue when I packed my overstuffed bags to leave Paris three and a half weeks later! Now of course I need to find the other four posters! Lacking are #2004, 2007, 2009, 2020, 2011, 2014, and 2015. I have an extra copy of "Conseil tenu par les Rats"; "Le Vieillard et les trois jeunes Hommes"; "Les Grenouilles qui demandent un Roi"; "Le Chêne et le Roseau"; "Le Geai paré des Plumes du Paon"; and "Le Pot de Terre et le Pot de Fer." Scroll down if you do not yet see pictures!
One can find a book of eighteen of these broadsides, including seven not included below, under "1930?" in the book section of this catalogue.
Maison Quantin
1890? Twenty-five printed sheets, 10¾" x 14½", each featuring an individual fable of La Fontaine. The sheets themselves give no identifying trademark, but these posters are identical with individual pages in two volumes, Imagerie Artistique: 20 Fables de La Fontaine I and II, listed under "1890?" and estimated by Bodemann to have been printed in 1888-90. The artists include H. Vogel, Gaston Gélibert, Mangonot, Godefroy, Firmin Bouisset, (Anatole Paul?) Ray, Job (=Jacques Marie Gaston Onfroy de Breville), and Gustave Fraipont. (I am indebted to Bodemann for the deciphering and spelling of these.) A frequent engraver's mark is "Michelet sc". One is dated 1888. Listed individually at 80 and 100 Francs, the set cost 1200 Francs from a Buchinist along the Seine, August, '99. Two extras from Bailly, Paris, June, '17, for €24. And 18 from Anne-Marie-Kucharski for €234, June, '17. "Shepherd and the Sea" for €3.25 from antikobjet 84200 through Ebay, Dec., '23.
Each page includes a title in caps at the top, with "Fable de la Fontaine" in smaller caps inside parentheses just below it. Somewhere on the page, the text of the fable appears. The colors are strong in many but may be misprinted somewhat in others (like "Le Rat et l'Huitre"). Among the strongest images are "Les Deux Coqs," "La Mort et le Bucheron," "La Cigale et la Fourmi," and "La Grenouille et le Boeuf." My highest prize goes to the complex composition of "Le Renard et les Raisins," complete with a poor man pointing to a palatial manor. "Conseil Tenu par les Rats" shows children protesting with placards (for example, "Vive les Vacances") outside the school. "Les Deux Chèvres" features two little girls plunging from a bridge into some water, with picnic basket, bottle, and shoe falling with them. One sheet is unfortunately cropped (by the publisher?) right through the title : "Les Oreilles du Lievre"). I found this set just after I had found a set of Pellerin large-format colored sheets of La Fontaine's fables. A genuinely surprising find was "Le Berger et la Mer" six years after finding other members of this group! I again experienced that making out Firmin Bouisset's signature is not easy!
Imagerie Artistique by Quantin
1890? 11 broadsides labelled “Imagerie Artistique.” Numbered. From Bailly, Paris, June, '17, for €147. TMCM and "Ass Carrying Relics" for €20 each from Bouquinistes, July, '23.
These broadsides are identical with those listed here as from Maison Quantin, except that they add two sets of information at the top of each broadside: on the left, “Imagerie Artistique” along with a series number and number within that series. At the right-hand top one finds “Imprimerie-Librairie Quantin, 7, Rue Saint-Benoit, Paris.”
Imagerie Nouvelle
Unnumbered Broadsides:
1900? Three broadsides from Imagerie Nouvelle, presenting TB; "The Ass and Lapdog"; and "The Ass Carrying Relics." €9.90 each from bdsetrevuessympas through Ebay, Feb., '23.
As I have remarked about one of the bound versions of Imagerie Nouvelle broadsides, they seem a poor man's Pellerin. Each poster has its own way of integrating text and images. Is that a tabernacle being carried by the ass attended by a monk? As elsewhere, I have questions about coloring of some figures, like that of the ass approaching his seated owner. All three of these sheets bear seven old staple impressions, curiously unevenly spaced. I presume they once were portions of a published album of broadsides like the other in our collection.
Numbered broadsides:
1840? La Vieille et les Deux Servantes. Broadside. 10.5” x 15.5.” Imagerie Nouvelle. $34.45 from Donald Heald, Sept. 20, '02. Extra copy for perhaps €10, perhaps at St.-Ouen, July, '19.
This broadside features a fable by Jean de la Fontaine titled “La Vielle et les Deux Servantes.” The poster has twelve scenes drawn out in ink and then printed on the paper along with captions describing the images. All of the captioning and words are written in French.
Pellerin 1850?
1870? Now, in 2022, I am gathering together our 25 broadsides, including three duplicates, from L'Imagerie d'Épinal. These were found in groups at various times. There seem to be two sets of publications. I list a more recent set, differently numbered, under "Pellerin 1890," though I am as unsure of that date as I am of this earlier set's date. A set of 12 from Ramses for €20 each through Ebay in Sept., '20 and another set in Nov., '21. A set for €16 each from Istrilene through Ebay in Oct., '21. A set of seven on heavier stock from an unknown source.
Some of these broadsides look more like pages torn from a book, and one can find those Pellerin books scattered through the collection. Several are duplicates bought in different groups. As with the illustrations in earlier Pellerin book publications around 1910, each broadside here is numbered either between 400 and 455 or between 3007 and 3088.
Pellerin 1870?
1870? Two Pellerin broadsides presenting multiple stories. #924 and #925. €3.25 each from "antikobjet 84200" through Ebay, Dec., '23.
I have created a third "epoch" of Pellerin broadsides because the numbering system for these two does not fit with either of the numbering systems I have already found at work and put under "1850?" and "1890?" Both are on very light paper, and one deals with three stories and the other with two. Each uses three colors: red, blue, and yellow. There is surely fascinating history behind these strong presentations of La Fontaine's fables!
Pellerin 1890?
1890? Twenty-two printed sheets, 12½" x 16¼", each featuring either an individual fable of La Fontaine or a set of four fables. Each is numbered in an apparent set of 25. Now I have found the whole set of 25 gathered in a book, Fables de la Fontaine, for which I have guessed a date of the same year. Matted on white cardboard. Missing are #3, #7, and #20. There is one extra copy of #14. Each is marked "Série Supérieure aux Armes d'Épinal, Pellerin & Cie, imp. -édit." and "Fables de LA FONTAINE (Hors Groupes)." I bought 21 of them as a group from a Buchinist along the Seine, August, '99; individually they were priced between 70 and 120 Francs each, but we settled on a group price of 1150 Francs for the twenty-one. I found two others at another Buchinist stall just a few minutes later and paid 75 Francs each for them. Click on any image to see it enlarged.
I had long thought that Pellerin, whose beautiful printing work I had seen elsewhere, must have done a set of fables. What a great surprise to find them! On almost all, the color work is still lively; on several it is brilliant, especially MSA (#8), "Le Coche et la Mouche" (#9), "L'Oeil du Maitre" (# 10), and "La Besace" (#22). Each page includes a title at the top. Somewhere on the page, the text of the fable appears. The first, WL, is bleached, perhaps from standing out at the front of the group too long under the Paris sun!
Other Broadsides
I have found six broadsides that are not parts of series of which we have other parts:
William Cowper's "A Fable" by André Chaves at the Clinker Press
2011? "A Fable," broadside designed and printed by hand on handmade paper by André Chaves. "Another Poet's version of The Raven presented to the Zamorano Club." Clinker Press. 10¼" x 16". $80 from Oak Knoll Books, Oct., '21.
In 2011 Chaves at the Clinker Press produced a version of Edgar Allen Poe's "The Raven." Might this broadside of Cowper's poem have been a companion piece? Dramatic work on a poem surrounded by a repeated printer's design involving a raven. The fable is about a mother raven who fears for her newly laid eggs in the storm and is then relieved -- only to have "neighbour Hodge" come the next morning to steal the eggs to give to his girlfriend. "Fate steals along with silent tread, found oft'nest in what least we dread."
Gangel: Two Fables of Florian
1880? Two fables of Florian. Broadside. "L'Enfant et le Miroir" and "L'Avare et son Fils." 15” x 12.5.” Metz: Gangel. €20 from chcestampnet through Ebay, Jan., '22.
Lively reds and blues render these two fables. The second is among Florian's wittiest: the miser father deserves his smarter talkback son! What will this son become when he becomes the miser?! Because people tend not to know the plots, I will summarize them briefly here. In "The Child and the Looking-Glass," a child first smiles and then grimaces at a mirror, and gets angered by the grimaces he sees. His mother catches him in his rage. "If you smile, it will smile back. Whatever you do, the image will do the same to you." In the second fable, a miser buys apples and locks them away but likes to look at them. Alas, some rot, and those he eats. His famished son gets the key and eats a lot of them with two little friends. "Give them back!" his father demands when he finds them out. Son: "Don't worry, Dad. We're all decent fellows. We leave the bad apples for you to eat; we ate only the healthy ones."
Chez Jean
1870? Framed broadside presenting six colored fable scenes. 13" x 9½". Framed by worn tape. Chez Jean, Rue St. Jean de Beauvais #10. No. 33. €10 from guymarie justin through Ebay, April, '22.
I am surprised that this very fragile piece arrived intact. It seems to have five colors: red, pink, yellow, brown, and green. "Fox in the Well"; "Fox and Bust"; CJ; WL; TH; and "The Man with the Wooden Idol." The color seems to be applied to areas rather than to the outlines of difficult objects like bushes
Orsoli Montsouris Anti-German WWI Propaganda Broadside
1917? "La Fontaine l'avait bien dit!..." "Dessins de Louis Morin." Paris: Imprimerie Montsouris, P. Orsoni, directeur." Essay by Georges Blondel on the verso. 21½" x 14½. Perhaps €15, perhaps in St.-Ouen.
A fascinating piece of work with verses taken or adapted from La Fontaine's fables and applied to the Germans in WWI. I can find another product of "Imprimerie de Montsouris P. Orsoni" on the web, dated 1916. The imagery here is sometimes rough but thoroughly challenging!
Broadside Reproductions of La Fontaine
1960? Eighteen reproductions of posters done about 1890 by Maison Quantin. The artists include H. Vogel, Gaston Gélibert, Mangonot, Godefroy, Etienne-Maurice-Firmin Bouisset, (Anatole Paul?) Ray, Job (=Jacques Marie Gaston Onfroy de Breville), and Gustave Fraipont. €10 each from Librairie AMK, Marche Dauphine, Saint-Ouen, June, '19.
These reproductions are well done. The seller estimated the date as 1960. Several things have been removed from the original, including the text of the fable, found generally in a box with the original animal characters, and the artist's signature. The range of these illustrations is fuller than in the larger broadsides, and the illustration "behind" the text box is filled in nicely.
