Punch à Paris

Paris: Lange Lévy et Comp., 1850. First Edition, Bound from the Original Parts
Complete with all six of the original front wrappers and the five leaves of advertisements at the end
From the Bibliothèque Antoine Vautier

CHAM (pseudonym of Amédée de Noé). HUART, Louis. CHAMPS, Victor, binder. Punch à Paris par Cham. Revue Drolatique du Mois. Paris: Lange Lévy et Comp., February - June 1850.

Complete with all six of the original front wrappers and the five leaves of advertisements at the end.

First edition, bound from the original parts. Small folio (11 x 7 7/8 inches; 280 x 200 mm.). [1]-192 pp. Six full page engraved plates and numerous engravings throughout the text. The six original pictorial front wrappers dated from January thru July 1850 bound in at front. Five leaves of advertisements and one blank bound in at end.

Bound by V[ictor] Champs ca. 1900 (stamp-signed in black on verso of front free-endpaper). Three quarter red crushed levant morocco over marbled boards, ruled in gilt, spine with five raised bands, elaborately decorated and lettered in gilt in compartments, cockerel-style endpapers. With the small octagonal bookplate of the celebrated collection of Bibliothèque Antoine Vautier on front paste-down.

The commencement of Punch à Paris was in February 1850 and was intended to be a monthly published magazine, however in June 1850, after just six issues Punch à Paris had to cease publication "The excessive rigors of the new press law oblige us to suspend our publication".

Cham, pseudonym of Charles Amédée de Noé (1818-1879) has collaborated in many satirical newspapers and has also published a number of albums of lithographs or woodcuts. Very comfortable in political and moral caricatures, he is one of the first to give stories in drawings that will soon be called comics and as such occupies a key place in the history of comics in France, and among the pioneers of the genre.

Louis Adrien Huart (1813-1865) was a French journalist, writer and theater director. From 1835, he wrote for Le Charivari, France's main opposition satirical daily, of which he was to become the most assiduous editor. In his literary and theatrical chronicles as well as in his satires of daily political news, he constantly approached the legal limit set by censorship without ever exceeding it. Many legends of lithographs by Honoré Daumier came from his pen. Editor-in-chief of Charivari from 1848, he later became its editor until his death. He had the merit of discovering and promoting young talents from the new generation, such as Henri Rochefort , who without him would have remained a simple employee of the administration. He also wrote the text for several books illustrated by Grandville and Cham.

Victor Champs (1844-1912) was one of the most prolific and renowned bookbinders of the late nineteenth century. "His bindings for bibliophiles are sought after by collectors, for the good performance of their body of work and the finish of the work. Together with Carayon, they were the bookbinders who, in relatively simple works, summed up the highest degree of perfection of execution." (Fléty, p.41).

Provenance: Bibliothèque Antoine Vautier. One of the great French bibliophiles whose superb collection "Catalogue de Vente aux Encheres" was sold in Paris at Hotel Drouot on April 21st, 1971 and on May 11th, 1977.

Hatin, 521.