A collection of 17 rare French caricatures on various subjects from fashion, food and race to health and beauty and prostitution. Many of the caricatures satirise English life.

£9,000 · Offered by Maggs Bros Ltd

[THEATRE]. Les coulisses de l’Opéra. Paris: [Paul André] Basset, [c.1815]. A little creased and grubby at the edges of the sheet but otherwise a very fine impression with bright colour. A supposed peak behind the scenes at the Paris Opera where a bare-chested young woman dances with the ballet dancer Marie Auguste Vestris (who has a distinguishing prominent large nose) while another dancer high-kicks her toe up the nose of a red-faced (English) gentleman. An actor in a frightening wolf costume appears from a trapdoor in the stage floor and a man peers inappropriately at a young woman through his monocle. The copy in the British Museum has a manuscript key identifying some of the actors in the scene. There is also a copy in the New York Public Library. [HEALTH]. La Fontaine de Jouvence. Paris: Alexandre Tessier, [c.1820]. Closely cropped to the plate mark but otherwise fine with bright colour. Two opposing groups of women meet at the supposed “fountain of youth”: on the left a group of three young woman with the label beneath “Aujourd hui” [Today] and on the right a grotesque group of older woman of various sizes labelled “Jadis” [Formerly]. In the water behind them a naked young woman is pursued by two older men. No copy in the BM. OCLC records BnF only. [FOOD AND DRINK]. L’épicurien. L’embarras des Richesses!!! Paris: [Aaron] Martinet, [c.1807]. A very fine impression with strikingly bright colour. A stout man in a resplendent red jacket and breeches with a floral waistcoat

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