Costumes des Femmes du Pays de Caux

Very good copy of this rare suite of fashion plates by the prolific Louis-Marie Lanté

With all hand-coloured engraved frontispiece and 105 hand-coloured fashion plates showing the elegant costumes of the women of Caux, Normandy, in the 1820s

With printed half-title and title in red and black, and eight pages of explanatory text by Pierre de la Mésangère.

The fashion plates engraved by Georges-Jacques Gatine after original watercolours by Louis-Marie Lanté and Benoit Pécheux

The women of the region famously wore tall lace bonnets that dated back to the middle ages. The frontis depicts many of the headdresses that are worn by the women in the plates.

"Benoit Pécheux, a renowned painter, a specialist in Italian frescoes had worked in France since the Italian campaign and ran a workshop of itinerant Italian painters. In 1811, the church of Yvetot contacted him to decorate the chapel of the Virgin. The same year, he decorated the dome of Saint-Romain in Rouen. He was also called to Limpiville, Fécamp and Le Havre. On Sundays and holidays, he rubs shoulders with Cauchoises adorned with original headdresses and draws them before returning to Paris.

"La Mésangère, who ran the Journal des Dames et des Modes in the capital, in turn sent an artist to do a more complete report. it was Louis-Marie Lanté who, in 1819, went to stay in Caux and then in other parts of the province, mainly frequenting the fairs and the ports of the coast, to fix on paper the particularities of the costume." (Marguerite Bruneau, Connaitre Rouen)

Plates 1-4, 6-12, 16, 20, 21, 23, 29-33 by Pecheux, all others by Lanté.

According to Rene Colas, the first complete edition appeared in 1827 (11 plates had been published separately in 1812). This is the second edition that appeared in 1885. (There was another centennial limited edition published by Le Goupy in Paris in 1927.)

Louis-Marie Lanté, 1789-1871, was a French painter, a pupil of Vaudoyer, and exhibited at the Salons from 1824 to 1838. He was the most prolific artist for Pierre de la Mésangère's famous Journal des Dames et des Modes for which he drew 1,466 fashion plates in watercolor from 1814 to 1829, many engraved by Georges-Jacques Gatine. He also drew suites of regional and historical costume plates including Ouvrieres de Paris 1816, Costumes of Hamburg 1827, Galerie des Femmes 1827, etc. All his books are very rare.

Georges-Jacques Gatine, 1773-c.1841, was a French engraver and etcher who specialized in costume plates and worked extensively with Lanté.

List of plates: 1. Frontis. 1,2 Cauchoise. 3. Cauchoise d'Yvetot. 4. Cauchoise. 5. Cauchoise de Saint-Valery. 6-11. Cauchoise. 12. Costume dessine a la foire de St. Gorgon, pres de Rouen. 13. Cauchoise de Saint Valery. 14,15. Ouvriere de Rouen. 16,17. Costume de Rouen. 18. Costume de Lisieux. 19. Costume du Val de la haye, pres de Rouen. 20. Enfans des environs de Rouen. 21. Bouquetiere sur la place de la Cathedrale a Rouen. 22. Blanchisseuse de linge fin a Rouen. 23. Costume de Coutances. 24. Ecaillere du Havre. 25-27. Costume de Coutances. 28. Costume des environs de Coutances. 29, 30. Costume des environs de Dieppe. 31-33. Costume du Bois d'Embourg, a trois lieues de Rouen. 34. Jeune personne du Havre. 35. Costume de Bolbec. 36. Costume de Rolleville, dessine au Havre. 37. Costume de Rolleville. 38, 39. Costume de Bolbec. 40, 41. Costume de Lisieux. 42. Costume de Pont-l'eveque. 43. Costume de Caen. 44. Servante de Caen. 45. Costume de Caen. 46. Costume des environs de Caen. 47. Jeune fille d'Harcourt, pres Caen. 48. Fermiere d'Harcourt, pres Caen. 49-52. Jeune fille de Bayeux. 53, 54. Costume des environs de Bayeux, pres de la Mer. 55. Jeune fille de Vilers Bocage. 56. Costume de St. Valery en Caux. 57. Costume d'Avranches. 58-62. Costume de St. Valery en Caux. 63. Jeune fille de St. Aubin, Servante a Dieppe. 64. Costume de St. Aubin, pres Dieppe. 65-67. Costume des environs de Dieppe. 68, 69. Costume de Crosville, pres Dieppe. 70. Jeune fille de Varangerville, Servante a Dieppe. 71. Marchande de Poisson a Dieppe. 72. Femme du Polet, a Dieppe. 73. Femme du Polet, a Dieppe, en habit de fete. 74, 75. Costume de Saint-Lo. 76, 77. Costume de Coutances. 78. Femme de Coutances en neglige. 79. Costume de Carentan. 80. Servante de Carentan. 81. Costume de Cherbourg. 82. Laitiere de Cherbourg. 83. Costume de Cherbourg. 84, 85. Costume d'Avranches. 86. Grisette de Lisieux. 87,88. Costume de Pont-L'Eveque. 89. Servante de Pont-Audemer. 90. Costume d'Isigny. 91. Servante des environs de Bayeux. 92. Costume de Vire. 93. Costume d'Honfleur. 94. Costume d'Etrepagny. 95. Costume d'Alencon. 96. Servante de Fecamp. 97. Grisette de Fecamp. 98. Costume de Coutances. 99-105. Costume de Granville.

Original yellow fake snake-skin wraps dusty and grubby outside, foxed inside. Frontis and all 105 engraved plates in very good condition, a few with dust at the edges or verso, no foxing or spotting, the hand-colour delicate and fresh. Housed in a second rigid portfolio of blue cloth-covered boards.

Very good copy of a rare title.