Observations sur les Modes et les Usages de Paris

Paris: Chez L'Editeur [Pierre de Crapelet], 1827. Seven Fine Hand Colored Lithographs from Le Bon Genre

BON GENRE, LE. [Observations sur les Modes et les Usages de Paris], Seven fine hand colored lithograph plates. [Paris: Chez L'Editeur [Pierre de Crapelet, 1830].

Seven plates from a later edition of ca. 1830. Each plate measures 10 7/8 x 8 1/2 inches; 276 x 216 mm. Some very small light stains affecting the lower portion of the first four plates.

Le Bon Genre was one of the earliest series of prints to record the social trends and leisure activities of contemporary Parisians. It is the most important fashion portfolio of its time documenting, through its caricatures, the rise of the modern city of Paris and the emerging middle-class bourgeois, its fashions, recreations and dating customs. It also has fun at visitors' expense, particularly the English, whose customs and fashions the French found incomprehensible and unfashionable; the years of hostility between France and England did nothing to improve relations and the French lost few opportunities to ridicule the British. Le Bon Genre's popularity influenced most of the later fashion illustrators and journals, as well as the satirical albums so typical of mid-19th century France, and remains a key record of French social history. Overall, Le Bon Genre bears witness to the colorful post-Revolution period of Parisian society as it evolves into the early Republican era.

"Le Bon Genre...was first published in 1817 and went through several editions. This is a record of English and French fashions since the beginning of the nineteenth century; the English fashions are more in the nature of caricatures, to show how badly Englishwomen dress as compared with the Parisiennes" (Vyvyan Holland, Hand Coloured Fashion Plates 1770 to 1899, p. 51).

The plates:

1. Le Bon Genre, N0. 42. Les Graces en Pantalon
2. Le Bon Genre, N0. 50. Les Garnitures
3. Le Bon Genre, N0. 51. Le Chapeau en Ballon
4. Le Bon Genre, N0. 53. Cheveaux à la Chérubin...
5. Le Bon Genre, N0. 54. Manches en spirale...
6. Le Bon Genre, N0. 55. Lecon de Diable...
7. Le Bon Genre, N0. 57. Carrick à Cinq Pélerines.