Galerie. Compositions avec écritures anciennes et modernes exécutées à la plume...

Strasbourg, E. Simon Fils, 1834-1835. 40 lithographed plates (including title). (title & 37 plates numbered 2-38.

Our copy does not have a plate 39 or 40. Plate 39 is replaced by the titlepage of Album du Moyen Age.... and plate 40 shows the Cathedral of Strasbourg from the same album, numbered plate 40). Are there two plates lacking and replaced by two others? It seems there never was a plate 39. (see Bonacini 1182 but with date of c. 1840). (plates 22-33 browned).

(Bound with): Spécimen des ecritures modernes comprenenat les romaines fleuronnées, Gothiques nouvelles, Fractures, Françaises, Anglaise, Italienne et Allemande. Executées à la plume par Jean Midolle. Gravées sur pierre et publiées à la lithographie de F. Emile Simon Fils à Strasbourg, 1834-1835. 40 lithographed plates (title & 39 plates numbered 1-40). (plates 14 & 15 inverted, plates 24-31 browned, plate 34 with a small tear in the margin).

(Bound with): Ecritures Anciennes d'après des manuscrits & les meilleurs ouvrages executées à la plume par J. Midolle. Gravées & publiés à la lithographie d'Emile Simon Fils 1834-1835. 40 lithographed plates (titlepage and 39 plates numbered 2-39 with two - different - plates numbered 30) (plate 2 bound upside-down, 3 plates with colour, plates 18-22 with a brown stain, plates 23-27 browned).

Oblong folio.Half morocco, marbled boards (boards & corners rubbed with some loss of paper on the boards; more or less foxed and browned throughout (as usual).

Jean Midolle was a French calligrapher and graphic artist. Not much is known about him other that he was born aruond 1794 the Besançon area and that he lived and worked as a calligrapher in Geneva, Mulhouse, St. Gallen, Strasbourg, and finally, Belgium. He published several works, either with interpretations of texts in the style of medieval manuscripts or traditional 'mondern' calligraphy styles but some of the alphabets in the present work are more fantastic and inventive. He was clearly a graphic designer of great skill and inventiveness. There is an alphabet with little devils (the 'alphabet diabolique'), and his 'alphabet lapidaire monstre' shows names of amous individuals within the letters. He even created an alphabet that was named after himself, the 'Midolline' that was made into a typeface in Germany in the mid nineteenth century and which became almost the first typeface to be named after its designer. [c.f. I Galerie - Bonacini 1182 (gives a date of c. 1840 and only calls for 38 plates), II Ecritures modernes - Bonacini 1186 (does not give a date), III - Ecritures anciennes - Bonacini 1181;D. Reynolds, Midolline: How a Frenchman became Germany's first type designer].