Armée française. (French army).
Weissenburg (Wissembourg), France: Charles Burckardt, [1870s?]. Large format color broadside 16.5” x 13.5”. Good. Some toning. Minor losses along edges, and bottom left corner, repaired with tape on verso. Printed in France. Text in English and French.
Charles Burckardt took over the Wentzel printing house from the widow of Frederick Charles Wentzel who died in 1877. He continued to exploit the funds accumulated by his predecessors. His catalog offers 2,500 images, all funds combined. Religious images predominate with 1,200 articles; the rest of the production is mainly aimed at young people, with 300 images of soldiers or battle scenes, 250 images to cut out, edit, articulate ..., 150 stories and stories to color. The images are often used to make games: targets, goose games and derivatives, mills, playing cards ...
After his death, the company was taken over by Emile Schenk and Hermann Junck, then, until 1906, by Junck alone.
Originally conceived in 1796 by Jean-Charles Pellerin in his native village of Épinal (Vosges), the images d'Épinal were inexpensive woodcuts and lithographs of religious and historical content intended for the common
consumer. During the Napoleonic wars, these images became extremely popular as Pellerin's printing house, Imagerie d'Épinal, cornered the market on commemorative historical prints. During the Great War, the traditional style of these prints appealed to French artists looking to show their patriotism, as in the eyes of an increasingly anti-German public, the image d'Épinal came to represent a distinctly French product unmarred by foreign influence. The prints had a further appeal in that their minimalist form allowed many artists to stay true to the modernist ideals of their time. Item #18-2258
Price: $100.00