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1860
Adrien Alban Tournachon (French, 1825 -1903) dit Nadar Jeune,
young brothel of Felix Nadar
Green leather-bound with black embossed border over front and rear covers. Gold leaf title on spine. Features 22 mounted salt prints of racehorses at the Universal Agricultural Fair of 1860 held in Paris. Plates are accompanied by printed captions detailing each animal’s pedigree, breed, and prize awarded. Prints on salt paper by Adrien Tournachon
Adrien Tournachon
After his successful equestrian experience in 1855, Adrien Tournachon was commissioned in 1860 to photograph the horses at the agricultural competition. In an open-air studio, with large sheets contrasting the color of the horses as a backdrop, Nadar Jeune realizes the views that make up this album. These horse portraits would become one of his specialties since he opened a studio in the avenue des Champs Élysées in the early 1860s dedicated to horse photography.
Binding by Gruel:
Léon Gruel
Working in the family workshop from the beginning of the 1860s, then associated with his mother, who had become a widow, and his half-brother Edmond Engelmann, Léon Gruel also left his personal mark in the workshop, giving a new place to bookbinding. 'art. He became the sole owner of the workshop in January 1891, on the death of his half-brother Edmond. His shop at 418 rue Saint-Honoré, a veritable lounge set up under the workshop set up at this address in 1878, still in the Madeleine district, was then considered a small bookbinding museum. A renowned practitioner, Léon Gruel also wants to be a bookbinding historian. Its main publication is the Manuel historique et bibliographique, published in 1887 and supplemented by a second volume in 1905, which retraces, after a brief introduction on the styles, the history of bookbinding and its craftsmen in the form of a alphabetical directory, abundantly illustrated. Léon Gruel also held responsibilities within the profession: in 1889 he was one of the founding members of the binding-gilding-brochure syndicate, which acquired its final structure in 1891 and which he chaired from that date to 1900. He was also a member of the Cercle de la Librairie, of which he was vice-president in 1895. At the turn of the 20th century, on the strength of the international reputation of his house, he practically achieved the status of official bookbinder. He retired from business in 1901.
Price on request