L'AMOUR SOUS MICA
[ALMANACK.]
Étrennes mignonnes, curieuses et utiles, pour l’année mil sept cent quatre-vingt-dix.
Paris, Guillot, 1790.
12mo, pp. 128, with 2 folding engraved maps; bound in contemporary white calf, sides with painted vignettes surrounded by coloured metal decorations under mica, gilt red morocco borders, spine gilt in compartments and partially painted pink, edges gilt, blue silk endleaves and pink brocade flyleaves, silvered glass mirror inlaid to inner front board and a silk pocket to inner rear board, preserved in a contemporary gilt red morocco pull-off box lined with papier dominoté; small cracks to mica, mirror perished, otherwise very well preserved.
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Étrennes mignonnes, curieuses et utiles, pour l’année mil sept cent quatre-vingt-dix.
A French almanack for 1790 in a delightful sous mica binding with painted vignettes showing a courting couple one side and what appears to be a lovers’ tryst on the other, preserved in its original red morocco case.
The painted vignette to the upper board depicts a couple jointly raising a garland aloft, with a symbolic column surmounted by a heart between them. In the vignette to the lower board, another man – seemingly a lover – grasps the woman’s arm as she prepares to let go of the garland, pulling her away from the column and heart, which have been relegated to one side.
The almanack contains folding engraved maps of France and Paris, as well as, inter alia, ‘curiosities and monuments’ to see in Paris; a list of the city’s Académies; a detailed account of the storming of the Bastille, and descriptions of ceremonial and mourning dress for the clergy, the nobility, and the Third Estate.
Not in OCLC or Library Hub. CCFr finds copies at Lyons, Versailles, and the BnF.
