Die Soldaten der französischen Republik und des Kaiserreichs (Soldier of the French Republic and the Empire / Robert Florey's Copy);
Leipzig: Verlagsbuchhandlung von J. J. Weber, 1843. First edition. Hardcover. Quarto. 40 leaves (38 hand-colored plates, some of them with tissue guards, including frontispiece). Bound in three-quarter brown leather over marbled boards. Double-framed half-title. Frontispiece. Double-framed half-title and illustrated title page with black double frame. Collection of plates by the celebrated and decorated French military painter and printmaker Hippolyte Bellangé. His work was included into the 1855 Exposition Universelle, a major event in France exhibiting agricultural and industrial products, and the fine arts. All plates signed Bellangé in plates.
OCLC lists only one copy with this title in the University and City Library of Cologne. This OCLC listing refers to an 1844 publication by the publisher J. J. Weber, a volume with 364 pages and fifty original drawings of all types of military corps and uniforms of the French Republic and the Empire by Hippolyte Bellangé. Our copy with the original title page is dated 1843 and contains thirty-eight lithographs on the subject without any text but the captions in the double-framed pages. The collection contains images of generals, officers and soldiers from different corps of the French army from 1795 to 1814 with many of the plates not dated.
Conceivably this copy was a limited pre-publication bound by the publisher in 1843 during preparations for the 1844 copy. The indication of this being a limited edition is typed only onto a label glued to the front free endpaper. In addition, our copy contains an oval paper label with handwriting pasted to the front cover as well as two strips with imagery of French soldiers lined up, printed in color, glued to top and bottom of the cover. The copy contains four additional color printed strips of soldiers, one glued to the inside front cover, two to the front free endpaper and one to the half-title. The number of soldiers depicted on each strip varies. The oval paper label on the front cover contains the name Adolf Brougier and the year 1877 in calligraphy and the title in English in a different handwriting. The front free endpaper also contains a paper label with typed title, subtitle and publisher's information glued in between the two printed strips. Publisher's information on this label ends with "(Limited)," but no printed indication of limitation. The Ex Libris on the inside front cover is from Robert Florey, the French-American film director, screenwriter and actor. Laid in a cutout lithograph of a cavalry officer (7 x 5") cut with black printed borders partially visible.
Text in German. Wear along edges, small chips and scuffing with spine missing except two narrow leather strips at head and tail. Some sporadic foxing, hardly effecting lithographs, small closed tears and rubbing throughout. Some penciled numbers in margins outside of lithograph borders. Starting at two places with one plate loose, held only with tan paper tape at top. Some of the plates reinforced with tape at gutter. Binding in poor, plates in very good condition. poor to vg. Item #47974
Adolf Brougier. Painter, etcher. Born in Stuttgart, Germany in 1870. Brougier studied art in France and Germany. He exhibited portraits and landscapes in Los Angeles for ten years before his death in Santa Barbara, CA on March 11, 1926. Exh: Curtis Gallery (LA), 1924; Holland & Garrison Gallery (LA), 1924. Ben; AAW; SCA; DR; AAA 1926; LA Times, 3-12-1926 (obit).
Price: $175.00