Collectif - Album Vénitien - 1840

The Venetian Keepsake, illustration of the ancient chronicles of Venice, published in Paris by the Journal de la Mode

With previously unpublished stories by Étienne d’A…., Maurice d’Alouysi, Arnold, Léon de Bernardière, Henri Berthoud, Étienne d’Est, Merle, Alfred Nettement, Roger de Beauvoir, the Baron de Tautavel, the Viscount Walsh

Ornamented with eleven English steel engravings

The Venetian Keepsake is a collection of unpublished tales linked to Venice, published in Paris by the Journal de la Mode, which both edited and distributed it. It forms part of the flourishing vogue for French romantic keepsakes, which peaked between the 1830s and the late 1840s.

The keepsake genre is an English invention, whose fashion was launched around 1820. Keepsake literally means “an object given to be kept as a souvenir.” It is a luxurious book, without practical utility, but with exquisitous presentation, traditionally offered as a New Year gift. The trend was imitated in France from 1830 onward, with publications such as Keepsake français or Souvenir de littérature contemporaine (1830) or the long-running Paris-Londres series (from 1837, at Delloye). The formula rests on a characteristic alchemy: unpublished stories by fashionable Romantic authors paired with fine English steel engravings—engravers of this medium being incomparable in Britain at the time—bound in romantic decorated boards, with gilded covers and gilded edges, specially designed for display and fashionable gifting.

This Keepsake vénitien stands out from general anthologies by its thematic unity: the entire volume is devoted to Venice and its ancient chronicles, in full accord with the fascination that the Serenissima exerted on French Romanticism, from Byron to Musset, from George Sand to Théophile Gautier. The title promises an “illustration of the ancient chronicles of Venice” — meaning that the proposed stories draw inspiration from the history, legends, and picturesque narratives of the Republic of Saint Mark.

The volume gathers unpublished stories by eleven contributors. Several of these authors are identifiable figures of Romantic or legitimist literature. Roger de Beauvoir (1806–1866) is a prolific novelist and playwright, close friend of Alexandre Dumas, nicknamed the “Brown Musset” by Delphine de Girardin. Alfred Nettement (1805–1869) is a Catholic legitimist journalist and historian. Henri Berthoud (1804–1891) is a versatile writer, author of stories and scientific popularization, frequently present in this type of publication. The Viscount Walsh (Joseph-Alexis Walsh, 1782–1860) is an Irish-French Catholic and royalist writer. The simultaneous presence of these legitimist and Catholic pens, alongside more eclectic authors, is coherent with the profile of the Journal de la Mode, a socialite publication aimed at women and the middle class.

This book comes from the former private library of Bruno Durand (1890–1975), a Provençal poet writing in Occitan and a Félibrige member, who was also an archivist, librarian, historian, and linguist. A public library bears his name on the outskirts of Aix-en-Provence.

The work appears in quarto (22 x 27 cm) of 152 pages, characteristic of the keepsake format, with the editor’s romantic half-calf binding in red red leather with decorated boards, all edges gilded, and the eleven engravings laid out as plates outside the text. The publication date, not specified in the title, most likely falls in the 1840s–1845 range, at the heart of the genre’s vogue. Binding rubbed, corners worn, tear with loss on a flyleaf. Foxing. Slight loosening of some pages."}