Lot 139: Ambroise Tardieu (1788-1841) - Album comique de pathologie pittoresque. 1823

Ambroise Tardieu (1788-1841)
Album comique de pathologie pittoresque, recueil de vingt caricatures médicales. Paris: Huzard-Courcier for Ambroise Tardieu, 1823.First edition of this French publication of caricatures of various diseases as social satire. The illnesses lampooned include gout, vapours, indigestion, colic, apoplexy, madness, St-Guy's dance, asthma, jaundice, smallpox, tics, and migraine. It is rare on the market - we have only been to trace the Norman copy (selling twice in 1998 and 2014) and another at Bonhams in 2000 (ABPC/RBH). Norman 30.Oblong folio (240 x 320 mm). Half-title, wood-engraved title vignette and tailpieces, 20 hand-coloured lithographic plates by Aubry, Antoine Chazal, Colin, Hippolyte Bellangé, and Edm Jean Pigal, all lithographed by Langlum, each plate accompanied by two pages of text (plate 'Le Mal de Dents' with printing flaw and hand-coloured to obscure this defect, some light soiling and spotting throughout, mainly confined to margins, tiny chip to margin of final plate). Original brick-red glazed paper covered boards, original hand-coloured lithographic title mounted on upper cover (extremities rubbed with small losses to corners and tail of spine defective, lithographic title on upper cover soiled and stained). Provenance: ink inscription on endpaper in Dutch: ‘Dr. Heeres / Uit erkentelijkheid dere humor in Uw ernstig beroep / Ultimo mei – 14 September ‘43’.