Full Morocco
1907 · Paris
by A. Mallemont, directeur
Paris: Albert Brunet, 1907. Second edition. Full Morocco. Very Good Minus. Folio, measuring 14 by 11 inches, 35.5 by 28 cm, containing 12 color plates (color lithography) featuring five heads (or busts) with historic, eccentric and/or fanciful hairstyles and dress. Facing the plates, on the tissue guards, are explanatory notes. The styles presented were probably intended to inspire costumes for fancy dress balls, then the rage. Now, as surely then, the figures can tickle and delight us, and this album is far less ponderous than the encyclopaedic tomes on costume such as Racinet or fashion periodicals of the period. Each figure is given a name, to which the fashion presented has drawn its inspiration, sometimes literally, other times more loosely. So we have "Watteau", "Cyrano", "Etoile d'Orient", "Clownesse", "1830", "Sauvage", "Catherine de Medici", "Figarette", "Sphynx", "Convention", "Japonaise", "Fantaisie Louis XV", "Coq", and on and on. A few of the labels repeat themselves, with variant interpretations. Original wrappers bound in leather. Leather rubbed along edges, with corner losses, split along front joints and chunks lost on the spine. Previous owner, a Hungarian name, lightly stamped on plates. Otherwise, plates are generally clean.
(Inventory #: 006574)