Le Petit Artiste. Journal Universel de la Pratique du Dessin
Paris: Monrocq Frères, Editeurs, “Première Année” (1876). Small folio, measuring 12 x 9 inches: [100]. Contemporary half-calf gilt, brown marbled boards, brown marbled endpapers. Original color lithographed front wrapper bound in, preliminary bifolium with title printed in red, followed by twenty-four numbered bifolia lithographed in black and brown, recto and verso. Penciled mustache to portrait in No. 7, old tape repair to No. 8, light shelfwear to binding with expert reinforcement to corners.
Complete run of the first year of this ephemeral French series designed to teach children to draw, consisting of twenty-four numbers issued on the 1st and 15th of each month. Each lithographed installment offers young artists a range of models to copy and color, from simple line drawings to more elaborately shaded landscapes and portraits. A contemporary English commentator favorably compares “these really good specimens of art” with “the very inadequate contrivances specially prepared for the English market,” observing that these “drawings on stone, on very coarse and cheap paper, from Paris, intended for the use of poor children [represent] works of art of the very highest excellence and refinement” (“Drawing Models for Children,” Industrial Art, 1877). Text in French. A very good copy.
Price: $300.00