L'Art du Travestissement

Rare set of 20 parts from the first four series of Leon Sault's fancy-dress or cos-play magazine.

Each part (or livraison) with 3 hand-coloured lithographs and 3 lithographs on a particular theme for a total of 118 plates, 58 hand-coloured (missing two plates, Jeune Homme 1:5 and Polonaise 2:5).

The designs can be split into allegorical and traditional costumes. Allegorical includes games, the four seasons, the elements (fire, air, snow), winged creatures, fruits and flowers, etc. Traditional includes national costumes of China, Japan, England, Scotland, Scandinavia, Alsace and Brittany as well as French historical costumes from the reign of Henri III, Henri IV, Louis XVI, the French Revolution, Napoleonic, etc.

With the popularity of masquerade balls at the court of Empress Eugenie in the Second Empire, demand for unique fancy dress costumes increased. Sault published his fancy dress designs in the magazine L'Art du Travestissements from the 1880s and began selling his unique stage costumes to the party-loving rich.

Leon Sault was a theatre and opera costume designer, and luxury fashion magazine publisher, editor and illustrator. He was active from the 1860s to the 1880s, and published the stage magazine La Comedie illustree, the fashion magazine L'Aquarelle mode, as well as this fancy dress magazine.

Very rare volume. Only one copy on JISC at the University of the Arts, London.

Solid library binding of half brown leather and cloth boards, gilt title, 5mm loss of spine from top and bottom, library bookplate on front endpaper, blind stamp to first title page. Paper starting to tone at the edges, a few small chips to the brittle paper, but all plates with bright and delicate hand-colour, some heightened with gum arabic.