Boyhood Photos of J.H. Lartigue, First Edition

Boyhood Photos of J.H. Lartigue: The Family Album of a Gilded Age

First Edition, First Printing, 1966

Fine Condition

This is a first edition, first printing of “Boyhood Photos of J.H. Lartigue: The Family Album of a Gilded Age” published by Ami Guichard, Lausanne, Switzerland in 1966. Designed to mimic Lartigue's own photo scrapbook, this book contains snapshot-sized reproductions of Lartigue's most beloved photographs that provide a rare glimpse into everyday life in Europe during the Gilded Age. The sepia-toned photographs are presented just as one would arrange a family album. Events are intermingled with snapshots, portraits, and personal captions to create a nostalgic and touching volume on prosperous European life before the outbreak of World War I. From the introduction: "Lartigue's pictures, along with his accompanying comments and recollections, represent a kind of family album which summons up not merely the fanciful life of the lavish and successful Lartigue family, but in some sense, the childhood of a century as well. He chronicles how he and his brother and cousins amused themselves on vacations at their country estate, in Paris, among the fashionable ladies and fantastic new devices (horseless carriages, flying machines) of the 1900s. Gradually, through his photographs and memories, a sense of the age begins to take shape, in all its unabashed frivolity, its excitement, its blessed feeling that peace is the natural condition of man and that prosperity (for those who have it, at least) must be enjoyed to the fullest.”

Containing 62 tipped-in black and white and sepia-toned reproductions and measuring 9.25” x 12”, the book is bound in burgundy laminated cloth-covered boards with a tipped-in sepia plate. The book is in FINE condition.

Photographs of the book cover as well as a few photographs from the book appear below. Please note that the photographs appear digitized but by clicking on any of the photographs they will enlarge and can be viewed as a slideshow.