Bold Art Deco typography announces "Le Havre" on this crisp souvenir booklet of 12 detachable photographic views of France's great Norman port city — a place of ocean liners, grand civic architecture, and busy quays that would be almost entirely obliterated by Allied bombing in September 1944. Published by the Compagnie des Arts Photomécaniques (CAP) of Schiltigheim (Bas-Rhin, Alsace), the booklet's graphic cover in ochre and dark brown stripes with a circular CAP logo is a textbook example of interwar French commercial design. Inside, large-format photographic cards on thick stock document Le Havre as it stood in its pre-war grandeur: the north facade of La Bourse (the ornate 19th-century Chamber of Commerce with its copper dome, statuary fountain, and formal gardens) appears as card no. 67, and a panoramic view of the Place Gambetta with its new gardens and the forest of sailing-vessel masts in the inner harbor (no. 194, an LL-numbered image repurposed into this CAP set) offers a sweeping harbor scene. The back cover of the booklet carries a handwritten note in ink: "Blue — 14th Cent. Bargello — Pink — De Medici marriage — Bianca Capello — 16th Cent." — a former owner's art-history research notes, suggesting a cultured traveler. Condition is very good with light edge wear.

SKU: PC-02970