Album de Forain.

Paris: H. Simonis Empis, [1893]. First edition, limited to 75 copies on Chine, this being #14, signed in pencil by the artist.. Hard Cover. Good. Folio (42 cm); [4] leaves and [50] printed plates of Fourain's cartoons. Original hand-tinted wraps bound in. Upper wrap loose. Many plates with English translation of caption supplied in ink (in Hoe's hand?). Pervasive damp stain at juncture of gutter and top edge. Bound in half levant morocco over marbled boards, by David. Bookplate of Robert Hoe, later bookplate (by E.D. French) of Colonel C.L.F. Robinson.

Reference: Hoe sale III, 1194 (this copy). The Hoe-Robinson copy of a collection of cartoons that affectionately satirize Parisian sexual-social customs. Forain was a friend and protégé of Degas, and a follower of Daumier. The preface is by the French novelist Alphonse Daudet, who writes, "The whole of Paris is there, modern Paris, from top to bottom, Paris and its terrors, its joys, its vices... explored by two sharp black eyes prying and watching...." This copy bears the ownership marks of two notable book collectors. Robert Hoe (1839-1909) was the founding president of the Grolier Club, New York's prestigious society of book collectors. His book collection rivaled that of his contemporary, J. Pierpont Morgan, but unlike Morgan he dispersed his books in a massive auction in 1911, where indeed Morgan acquired many prizes for his own library. C.L. F. Robinson (1874-1916) was the president of Colt Firearms, and a yeoman book collector. His library was sold at Anderson's shortly after his death, the same house that dispersed the Hoe library, for the considerable sum of $45,000.