Noah WebsterBiblio.com
[NOE, Amedee de].Biblio.com
Mœurs Britanniques par Cham.
1846réf. 2210160Vignette title and 15 hand coloured lithograph plates heightened with gum-arabic; lightly foxed in places and three plates with repairs to tears in lower margin; original publisher's glazed pictorial boards the upper board reproducing the title-page in uncoloured state and little rubbed and chipped to extremities and with loss to foot of spine nevertheless still a very appealing copy. Uncommon first edition and the more desirable coloured version of this humorous French view of British eccentricities. Of this seemingly endless subject Noé gives full vent to the ridiculous ways and customs of the British. The English Scots and Irish all have fun poked at them with stock characters of English yeomen in smocks Irishmen in rags wielding shillelagh clearly a reference to the famine then raging in Ireland and Scots with tammies and tartan plaid. Each plate is subjoined with a title and humorous descriptive text:=- 'Une femme bien attachée;' 'Le Quaker;' 'Le Recruteur;' 'Visite au Musée;' 'Mariage d'inclination;' 'Les Hauts grades;' 'Philanthropie. Bien entendue' 'Les Boxeurs;' 'l'Écossais;' 'Un Costume national;' 'Baragouin Britannique;' 'In the Stocks;' 'Le Péage du turn-pike;' 'L'Invalide de Chelsea;' and 'Smithfied Market.'. The prolific French illustrator Amédée de Noé 1819-1879 produced a number of similar themed works including an idiosyncratic look at the Great Exhibition of 1851 and a series of pamphlets depicting French life dating from the late 1860's. Noé who used the nom de plume Cham i.e Ham the son of Noah was said to have an idea a day contributing much of his best work like Daumier to the Le Charivari. OCLC lists copies at the V&A Getty UCLA Texas and the Morgan all curiously mis-dated to 1870 and unascribed to Noé; and a copy at Fribourg. Chez Aubert & Cie. Editrs des Caricatures du Jal le Charivari. place de la Bourse. 29. hardcover
