Prosper Mérimée, Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, Victor Fournel, Édouard Fournier / divers artistes - Paris dans sa splendeur - 1861

[COLLECTIF]. Paris in Its Splendor. Monuments, views, historical scenes, descriptions and history. Paris, Nantes, Henri Charpentier, 1861. 2 volumes (only volumes II and III of 3), folio, half-brown morocco, smooth spines with gilt rules, boards of grained black calfskin, initials “A. P.” in gold Gothic letters on the front board (period binding). Original edition.

This is a vast publishing undertaking of the Second Empire. It appeared at the very moment when the annexation of the suburban communes (January 1, 1860) expanded Paris to twenty arrondissements. The work brings together the pens of Prosper Mérimée (1803-1870), Eugène Viollet-le-Duc (1814-1879), Victor Fournel (1829-1894) or Édouard Fournier (1819-1880), and fixes the image of the capital at the height of Haussmann’s great works.

Volume II completes Part One, Description of Paris: civil and religious edifices, promenades, institutions, charitable establishments, commerce. Volume III contains Part Two, History of Paris. It runs from “Paris before the Romans” (Samarobriva, Lutetia Parisiorum) to the Revolution, continues with Modern Paris and ends with the Suburbs of Paris.

Volume III opens with a large Plan of Paris showing its successive enlargements, finely lithographed and hand-colored. It shows the twenty new arrondissements, the fortified enclosure, the Bois de Boulogne and a map of the surroundings. The titles are printed in black and red, with a large vignette bearing the city’s arms, banners and wood-cut vignettes after Félix Benoist (1818-1896) and Hercule Catenacci (1816-1884). Yet the major interest lies in the plates hors texte. These are large lithographs on tinted backgrounds, drawn for the most part by Philippe Benoist (1813-1896), a pupil of Daguerre, “with the help of photography,” according to the title note. This method gives the views remarkable architectural accuracy. The print run is very fine, and the distant views are animated with carriages and passers-by. It is one of the finest lithographic series devoted to 19th-century Paris.

These two volumes bring together 50 superb hors-text lithographs.

The binding is rubbed and stained in several places, small leather losses at the back, a brown halo along the upper margin of volume 2 (see specific photo), some foxing and minor defects. Volume II and III only, volume I is missing.