Univers Romantique:
The French in their own image

This absolutely unique, world-class collection, offered for sale en bloc, has been extensively documented in Catalogue No. 83 (in four large quarto volumes, 2000 pages, 4000 colour illustrations), available in the online shop.

It includes all important French illustrated books between, roughly, 1825 and 1875, with 1668 original drawings and watercolors by the period’s most important and influential illustrative artists, including J.J. Grandville, Gustave Doré, Paul Gavarni, Honoré Daumier, Jean Gigoux, Tony Johannot, Nicolas Toussaint Charlet, Auguste Raffet, Édouard Wattier, and many more. The collection features 600 lots, including an unprecedented 111 copies on China paper, 85 illuminated or hand-coloured specimens, several unique copies on vellum, hundreds of signed bindings by the masters of the craft between 1830-1930 (70 of which are publisher’s bindings in morocco or chagrin), as well as a sheer abundance of other marvels, such as the painted printing blocks of Johannot and Doré.

A few words about this extraordinary collection, by Dr. Heribert Tenschert

Even a mere cursory reading of these volumes resembles a kind of artistic journey into the afterlife: from the flickering darkness of the Diable à Paris via Grandville’s and Daumier’s purgatory transformations, to the paradise of Doré’s spiritual realms and the scent of heaven in Tony Johannot.

When you return you find yourself in “another world”. In other words, one could consider it a seemingly endless adventure holiday. It’s like strolling with impunity (and it is a stroll) into the great unknown. Here I’m not talking about the act of collecting, which drove and delighted me for ten years, no, I’m talking about the curious discrepancy between the seed of ideas of French Romanticism, the spectres of its images and forms as they existed in my narrow-mindedness (mostly drawn from the knowledge of auctions and reference works), and the silent wonder in the face of almost every one of the 600 works in the completed collection, which now amounts to a garden of Eden replete with love, boasting in the inexhaustibility of its bloom.

Never before has there been such a collection, carved from the heartwood of the French illustrated books of the Romantic (grosso modo 1825-1875). There was perhaps one that was bigger, that of Paul Gavault (sold in five auctions in 1950/51): comprising a total of over 1300 lots of mixed quality, but this we mustn’t dwell on, especially since many of its important pieces are now part of our collection.

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Sam Clapp’s comparatively more serious collection, described in a 2002 catalogue that did not do it justice, brought together a variety of individual aspects of the Romantic, including first or early editions, curiosities, display objects etc. (much of it in precarious condition), but this collection can also hardly be compared to ours, not least because a considerable number of its most beautiful items became the seedbed of what is presented here. This is even more true for the collection of my friend Adrian Flühmann, which was assembled over the course of no less than forty years. This collection was acquired en bloc and in more ways than one constitutes the raison d'être for this catalogue. Yet all other major collections - Lebouf de Montgermont, Legrand, Rattier, Brivois, Ripault, Descamps-Scrive, Beraldi, Mercier, Villebœuf, Roudinesco, Esmerian, Duché, Bonnasse - which, together, form the Magna Charta of French bibliophilia in the 20th century – were not only smaller in size (between about 100 entries in Esmerian and Bonnasse and about 320 in Descamps-Scrive), but most importantly, they were also narrower in scope and did not aim at the totality of the bibliophilic phenomenon.

The stellar Descamps-Scrive collection from 1925 included 49 copies on China paper - a number that was always considered the nec plus ultra - however no original drawings, no affiches, no printing blocks, etc. Beraldi, on the other hand, excelled with signed bindings and drawings, but was missing not only copies on China paper but also publishers' bindings (the latter, especially in the form of gold-tinctured and inlaid percale have only recently become an area of collecting in their own right, and will be the subject of a forthcoming catalogue about the 1600 items in my collection). Again, suffice to say that almost all jewels from these collections can now be found in ours (such as ten of the 14 Esmerian specimens on China paper). What I’m trying to suggest is that the lofty title Univers Romantique truly applies for the first time in regard to this collection. Its intention, as we see, was always intuitively aimed at the universal, and manifests itself in every aspect: be it the 1668 original drawings or watercolours (78 by Grandville – most of them of lasting importance, 58 by Gavarni, 75 by Gigoux, 37 by Doré, 33 by Tony Johannot, 23 by Charlet, 22 by Raffet, 65 by Lorentz, 61 by Steinheil, 70 by Trimolet, nearly 100 by Traviès, 140 by Philipon, 55 by Staal, and more than 200 by Wattier), or the copies on China paper (a breathtaking 111), the painted printing blocks of Johannot or Doré, or the unica on vellum. Furthermore, consider the hundreds of signed bindings by the masters of the craft between 1830-1930, 70 of which are publisher’s bindings in morocco or chagrin, in addition to 85 illuminated or colourized specimens, as well as a sheer abundance of rarae aves. All this opens up before our eyes and is nearly unfathomable in its concentration.

I haven’t even mentioned the state of preservation of these treasures after more than a century and a half! For this, one simply cannot thank the amateurs mentioned in the title page deeply enough. It was in their possession that these trophies were not only looked after, but also augmented, enriched, and elevated to rarity, even uniqueness.

Though the riches in this assemblage might seem as endless as the sea, allow me nonetheless to single out the two dozen works that rise above the waves like majestic islands of paradise. These are the supporting foundations of any collection of romantic illustration, since they are not only structural, but legitimising - et voilà:

Balzac (Nos. 13-30, with an awe-inspiring series of the Contes drolatiques: five copies on China paper, including that of his widow, Madame de Balzac); Bernardin de St Pierre, Paul et Virginie 1838-1853 (49-74, what an utter imposition to our bibliophile capacity: five copies on China paper - and not a single duplicate!), La Caricature (99-100, two more than complete copies: the spirit and wit of one hundred years condensed into five); Chants et Chansons Populaires de la France (110-119, three contemporary illuminated copies, the unique print on China, and a total of 145 original drawings); Cervantes (104-108, two copies on China, and Grandville's binding stroke of genius); Diable à Paris (155-161, 249: one illuminated and one on China, as well as 48 original drawings by Gavarni); Les Francais peints par eux-mêmes (210 - 218, our Via Regia to this central star); Goethe, Werther and Faust (261-269, see for yourself); all of Grandville’s major works, including: the Métamorphoses du Jour (279, 280, 311), Un autre monde (296-300), but above all the summum bonum of his work, Scènes de la vie privée et publique des animaux (286-292, 313, in the heavenly illuminated copy that belonged to Descamps-Scrive- Roudinesco-Bonnasse-Flühmann, as well as the only two copies known on China paper); Hugo, Notre-Dame (326-333); Jules Janin, Âne Mort and La Normandie (343-351, four copies on China); Las Cases, Mémorial de Sainte-Hélène, 1842 (380-384, two publisher's bindings in morocco, one copy on China paper bound in contemporary velvet, 23 original drawings); Lesage, Gil Blas and Diable boiteux (399-413, 75 original drawings by Gigoux, a total of six copies on China paper); Molière 1835-36 (450-454, three copies on China, one more splendid than the other); Nodier (466-476, ditto, to the Roi de Bohème); Norvins 1839 (477-479, including the illustrator Raffet's own copy on China, 21 original drawings); Prévost, Manon Lescaut, 1839 (511-517, five different copies on China paper), Rabelais-Doré 1854-1873 (521-530, a dozen drawings and the unique imperial folio copy on parchment): all these constitute impenetrable strongholds of bibliophilia, not to mention the countless deployment zones and glacis, evoked in the names Ariost, Barthélémy, Béranger, Bourassé, Davillier, Dumas, Enault, Fénelon, Florian, Gautier, Goldsmith, Goncourt, Lamartine, Laurent de l'Ardèche, Lurine, Michelet, Musset, Philipon, Pléiade , Saintine, Sterne, Sue, Wordsworth, Wyss and dozens of others.

With all these books it has been my desire to bring together the most beautiful copies in existence. Hence the aforementioned wonder in the face of such a thing being granted after more than a century’s distance. It can only be explained by the ancient flywheel, the ever-renewed spell of bibliophilia that invites the happy few of the initiated into its circle, a kind of secret order of passion, which no one joins without being transformed - just like with great literature.

In a time that prides itself on establishing the digitization of all areas of life with Stalinistic efficiency, this secret order represents a Mighty Fortress, which makes what is nowadays presented as without alternative look laughable by comparison.

The catalogue, as it now appears before you, is for the most part the product of my scholarly antiquarian associate Carsten Scholz, who has devoted the better part of his past three years to it. I myself am responsible for the final editing, as well as the sometimes thorny task of arranging the layout for all 4000 images, all done with the encouraging assistance of Maria Danelius and Athina Nalbanti.

One last word. I’m aware that many would not associate this kind of publication with our business. After all, the past 25 years of our activity were dominated by illuminated manuscripts of the Middle Ages and Renaissance (as well as the respective printed Books of Hours). However, this goes to show that all this time we weren’t idle in other fields.

This will become even clearer when the catalogue of my collection of livres à figures of the eighteenth century is published. With well over two thousand items, that collection follows and realises - with even more panache, and just as much passion - the guiding principles of Univers Romantique.

The initially suppressed, and then overpowering drive towards this joyfully liberated way of collecting gradually shows its results: God willing, it will give my career as an antiquarian bookseller - 40 years of balancing on the rolling ball - not its death knell, but rather a new spirit.

-H.T.