This small but chock-full watercolor/drawing sketchbook is French, 1860s, purchased from a seller there; many time better in hand than my photos convey, and really quite marvelous, including for the diversity and often unusualness --at least to contemporary eyes--of its contents. Lots of portraits of people in the gardens of Paris, or on the street--and one in the morgue (visiting the morgue was a popular pastime in mid 19th c. Paris.) A series of graphite drawings of tombs at Pere Lachaise cemetery, too, and several drawings done after political cartoons of the 19th c., including an 1813 many-drawings-within-the-drawing portrait of Napoleon. Plus some wonderful nudes. I would hate to see it broken up--as a whole it adds up to a specific portrait of Paris in the 1860s--and couldn't bear to do it myself, but there are some in here that rather scream to be framed. With a lovely hand-marbled paper over light board cover.
5 3/8" x 4 1/8". 39 pp total, containing 48 pages of drawings (filling entire pages), with many pages featuring drawings both on front and back. Done in a mix of watercolor and graphite. Photos are not all inclusive but give a good sense. All in excellent condition, on laid paper, with no tears and only minimal toning.
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