Album Comique de Pathologie Pittoresque

Paris: Chez Ambroise Tardieu, Editeur, 1823. Twenty Hand-Colored Lithographed Plates Depicting Caricatures of Various Diseases

AUBRY, Charles and others. Album Comique de Pathologie Pittoresque, Recueil de vingt caricatures médicales dessinées par Aubry, Chazal, Colin, Bellangé, et Pigal. Paris: Huzard-Courcier (for) Chez Ambrose Tardieu, 1823.

First edition of this exceptionally rare work depicting caricatures of various diseases as social satire.
The illnesses lampooned include gout, vapors, indigestion, colic, apoplexy, madness, St-Guy's dance, asthma, jaundice, smallpox, tics, toothache and migraine.

Oblong folio (9 7/16 x 12 1/2 inches; 240 x 317 mm). [8, half-title, vignette title & Introduction], [40] pp. of text in double columns. Twenty hand-colored lithographed plates by Aubry, Chazal, Colin, Bellangé, et Pigal. Plates lithographed by Langlumé. Scattered foxing and browning. Tiny paper flaw (3/8 x 1/4 inch) to lower-margin of last plate. Each plate accompanied by two pages of text. Neat ink inscription on front free endpaper.

Publisher's dark red decorative paper over boards with hand-colored lithographed pictorial label (by Colin) on front cover depicting two men kneeling, each kissing a hand of an elegantly dressed female skeleton with a wide brim hat. At the feet of one man are open and stacked books; at the feet of the other man is a collection of bottles. A skull and crossbones are in a tree, and in the background are tombstones. Covers decoratively bordered in gilt, spine ruled and lettered in gilt. Spine expertly restored, some wear to extremities and corners. Overall, an excellent copy in the original binding. Housed in a fleece-lined quarter black morocco clamshell case, spine with five raised bands, decoratively tooled and lettered in gilt in compartments.

1. ‘L'Apoplexie foudroyante' (Charles Aubry 1822)
2. ‘L'Asthme,'
3. ‘Le Cauchemar,' (Alexandre-Marie Colin)
4. ‘La Colique,'
5. ‘Les Cors aux Pieds,' (Edme-Jean Pigal)
6. ‘La Courbature,' (Alexandre-Marie Colin)
7. ‘La Danse de Saint Guy,'
8. ‘Les Envies de Femmes Grosses,' (Edme-Jean Pigal)
9. ‘La Folie,' (Charles Aubry)
10. ‘La Gale,' (Hippolyte Bellangé)
11. ‘'La Goutte,' (Hippolyte Bellangé)
12. ‘L'Indigestion,' (Charles Aubry)
13. ‘La Jaunisse,' (Alexandre-Marie Colin)
14. ‘Les Loupes,' (Edme-Jean Pigal)
15. ‘t,' (Charles Aubry)
16. ‘La Migraine,'
17. ‘La Petite Vérole,'
18. ‘Les Tics,' (Edme-Jean Pigal)
19. ‘Les Vapeurs,' (Alexandre-Marie Colin)
20. ‘Le Ver Solitaire'

Charles Aubry (fl. 1817-1837). Charles Aubry was an early lithographic artist who made his reputation with hunting scenes and military subjects. In 1822 he accepted the post of professor of art at l'Ecole Militaire de Saumur. In 1823 he published Album Comique de Pathologie Pittoresque in which he wrote the forty pages of text and together with Antoine Chazal (1793-1854), Alexandre-Marie Colin (1798-1875), Edme-Jean Pigal (1798-1872) & Hippolyte Bellangé (1800-1866) made the illustrations for the twenty highly amusing lithographs. Listings from the records of the Restoration Salon indicates that Charles Aubry contributed one lithograph to the 1824 exhibition.

Norman Library 30.


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