Description: Images d’Epinal Contes du Foyer. Large format
folio, softcover. Book with 50 Pellerin Imagerie d’ Epinal lithographs;
hand-painted illustrations by various French artists printed on thin broadsheet
paper, blank verso. Title on cover: “Contes
du Foyer“ (Tales of the Home) “Imagerie Pellerin Épinal.” Printed and hand
colored in France expressly for the Humoristic Publishing Company, Kansas City,
MO. by Jean-Charles Pellerin's Imagerie d'Epinal printing house. This is a
collection of fifty broad sheets that were originally sold separately. Each
broadsheet tells a different tale, in sequential art panels with accompanying
descriptive text (in English) below each panel. All known copies only have
fifty of the sixty known broadsheets, three slightly different covers known to
exist and all known copies were collected with sheets 15-20, 23, 24, 47 and 48
missing. This historically important graphic collection is a forerunner of the
modern day comic book. This is an Arts, Inc. reprint edition c. 1960s from the originally
published version of 1888. Size: approximately 11⅝” x 15¼”.
The individual pages are numbered and titled:
1. Impossible Adventures
2. Francis the Foundling
3. The Discreet Child
4. The Selfish Little Boy
5. Theodorus the Slovenly
6. The Little Boys in Our Days
7. The Black Man
8. If I Was a Little Boy
9. The Adventures of a Voyage
10. Cecilia the Babbler
11. The Price of a Lie
12. Mary the Disobedient Girl
13. Louisette and the Lamb
14. Courage Recompensed
21. The Misadventures of Mr. Heedless
22. The King of the Moon
25. The Sailor-boy's Dream
26. The Costly Disobedience
27. The Disobedient Little Girls
28. The Disobedient Little Boys
29. The Urchins
30. The Inquisitive Little Girl
31. Little Tom Thumb
32. Little Red Riding Hood
33. The Flying Trunk
34. Jack Simpleton
35. The Land of Cocagne
36. Don Quichotte
37. Blonda and Fairy Caprice
38. Un-business-like Jack
39. Captain Goodman
40. The Lion and the Two Sailors
41. The Little Mamma or The Doll's Education
42. A Real Fairy
43. John Laughing and John Crying
44. The Unconfortable [sic] Neighbours
45. The Bells
46. The Untruthful Boy
49. Advice to Everybody
50. The Proud Matilda
51. The Museum of Little Children
52. The Museum of little Children (continued)
53. The Story of a Little Mouse
54. Martha, the Good Negress
55. The Interesting Adventures of Mr Sponger
56. Father Flog
57. The Imprudent Children
58. The Pearl Necklace
59. Cinderella
60. Wisdom of the Nations
The Golden Griffin Gallery operated in New York City from
the 1940s to the 1970s. In the 1950s, the Gallery formed a partnership with
Pellerin Imagerie, becoming the sole distributor for Pellerin Imagerie in North
America. Arts, Inc. was a publishing arm of the Golden Griffin Gallery.
In 1796, Jean Charles Pellerin set up the
“Imagerie d’Epinal” and popularized printed images of everyday scenes. In 1810,
Imagerie d’Epinal make woodcuts of Napoleon by Francois Georgin, a renowned
engraver of that time. These were printed on Arches paper, from the town of
Arches (which was a near town to Epinal). In 1880, Imagerie began to print
flyers for businesses and political parties, alphabet literature and other
educational materials, riddles, illustrated songs, paper cutouts and plates of
soldiers. These
pochoir (hand painted using templates) woodcuts of military subjects,
Napoleonic history, storybook characters and other folk themes were widely
distributed throughout the 19th century.
Provenance: From the
residual estate inventory of The Golden Griffin Gallery/Arts Inc., operated in
New York City, New York from the 1950s to the 1970s. In the 1950s, the
Gallery formed a partnership with Pellerin Imagerie, becoming the sole distributor
for Pellerin Imagerie in North America.