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Eugène NUS & Antony MERAY

L'empire des légumes. Mémoires de Cucurbitus Ier. Drôleries végétales

G. de Gonet, Paris 1851 (S.d.), Grd. 18x25,8cm, relié.

L'Empire des légumes. Mémoires de Cucurbitus I^er. Drôleries végétales

 
First, rather rare edition, illustrated with a frontispiece and 24 plates finely engraved on steel with watercolor decoration (on papier fort), representing anthropomorphic vegetables in various situations, delightfully sketched by Amédée Varin. Each plate is a voyage of discovery, brimming with imagination, whimsy, and irony. One of the masterpieces of Romantic caricature.
Half brown shagreen binding, spine in five compartments decorated with gilt floral motifs, handmade endpapers, contemporary binding.
Contemporary political and social satire. On the Boulevard des Maréchaux in Paris, the narrator discovers an unknown world, the empire of vegetables governed by Cucurbitus I, who can be clearly recognized as Napoleon III and his government. A prophetic satire since the French empire would be proclaimed on December 2, 1852, betraying the first act of universal suffrage that had elected it. Cucurbitus I is depicted as an oriental despot, dressed in the Turkish custom. Although the practice of satire produced many famous texts (Louis Reybaud and his Jérôme Paturot, Le Diable à Paris, Scènes de la vie privée des animaux), none sketched the portrait of Napoleon III and his politics so directly.

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