MONTORGUEIL (Georges) - WILLETTE (Adolphe). - Lot 86

MONTORGUEIL (Georges) - WILLETTE (Adolphe). Paris dancing. Paris : Théophile Belin, 1898. - Large in-8, 286 x 195 : frontispiece, (2 ff.), VII, 220 pp, (2 ff.), 12 plates, printed embossed cover. Half garnet morocco with corners, spine with gilt iron representing a mill, gilt head, untrimmed, cover and spine kept (Kauffmann-Horclois). Edition printed at 200 copies on wove paper watermarked with the title of the book and the name of the illustrator. It is decorated with 40 compositions by Adolphe Willette engraved in intaglio by Vigna-Vigneron, including a color vignette on the title, 13 bistre headbands and 13 culs-de-lampe as well as a frontispiece and 12 off-texts in color. This panorama of the different types of dances that were practiced in Paris at the end of the 19th century, is divided into 12 chapters: On dansera. - The official ball. - Weddings and feasts. - The balls of July 14. - The Bals musettes. - Masked balls. - The Bals of Artists. - The Moulin de la Galette. - The Bullier Ball. - The naturalist Quadrille. - The Garden of Paris. - The Dance at the Opera. "These chapters, without aiming at erudition or history, are at least drawn from the sources; they are "spoken" by the interested parties, documented by the witnesses. The prefect of police, strict guardian of morals, gave his opinion as did Mlle Grille-d'Égout, introducer of the new cancan. The opinion of the "Désossé" was collected like that of the ballet master. The stars of dance were consulted as the musette bosses. The observation was relentless to guess until the impression felt, in the ball of the Élysée, by the head of the State, who makes dance, and the municipal, in the public ball, who supervises the dance - characters by function silent and discreet. From the mosaic of these impressions is deduced the method to follow for the sequence of these pages: it is based on four essential divisions which could be said: the vital causes of the dance and its chances of eternity. The dance is at the same time, in the official society and the world a politeness. It is a pleasure in the street, at the musette, at weddings, at carnivals, among artists and students, and at parties where charity takes the road. It is a means to the public ball, sometimes a state. In art, it is a goal" (pp. VI-VII). The representation of the different balls and dances has been perfectly reproduced by Adolphe Willette who offers in his compositions tasty and sometimes humorous details, reproduced after the observations he made in the different places described. Captions and headbands are purely humorous, featuring cherubs in sometimes comical situations. Copy including the frontispiece in 3 states (first printing before all letters, in black before the letter and in colors), the hors-texts in two states (in black before the letter and in colors) and a decomposition of the colors in 4 plates of the frontispiece. It also includes the in-8 leaf of the Avis des Graveurs bound at the end. A well-bound copy by Kauffmann-Horclois. Minimal rubbing to the spine. Provenance: Doctor E. Olivier, with bookplate.