(Street Performers and Hawkers) | Street hawkers and performers, including trained animals

(Street Performers and Hawkers)

[?Courtin]. Spectacles en plein vent. Paris: Ligny et Cie, [ca. 1850]

An album of handcolored lithographs each with accompanying text below, comprising a pictorial title-page and 22 plates, evidently cut round (140 x 111 mm) and mounted on wove stock (292 x 229 mm), pictorial title and "Polichenelle" plate signed Paris, Ligny et Cie, rue des Salle au Comte, 10, 2 plates ("Pommade pour les cheveux" and "Essais de force") signed Paris, Chez Tirpenne, Editeur, r. St. Jacques, 26; minor stain on first plate, a few guards splitting. Half blue cloth over marbled boards, red morocco labels on front cover and spine.

This is quite plausibly derived from a panoramic version which Sotheby's London sold in 1981, described as having 22 illustrations and bound in original boards with a pictorial label and title on upper cover signed F. Corbin with Tirpenne given as the publisher.

Plates include a tooth puller and terrified patient that is followed by a toothpaste salesman, a sword swallower, an organ grinder and his trained monkey, a dog that can add and substract sums, a Punch and Judy show, a hawker of hair pomade, a merchant of orvietan (a cure-all "medical" concoction), etc. Each illustration is captioned with a rather pungent remark. 

PROVENANCE:

Félicie Meunié d'Hostel, 1843–1935 (bookplate on front pastedown)