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Home > Rousselot, L'Armee Francaise > Rousselot, L'Armee Francaise, Planche No 22

Rousselot, L'Armee Francaise, Planche No 22

Rousselot, LArmee Francaise, Planche No 22, France, 1st Empire, Hussards, Generalities 1804-1812.
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Item #: Rousselot-022
France, 1st Empire, Hussards, Generalities 1804-1812.
Les Procedes Dorel, Paris, 1962
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An antique uniform print titled: Hussards, Generalities 1804-1812. It is Plate No 22 from L'Armée Française - ses uniformes, son armament, son équipement, a series of military uniform prints created by Lucien Rousselot to illustrate the uniforms of the French armies of Louis XV, Louis XVI, Napoleon (1st empire), and Napoleon III (2nd empire). 

The plate is a full color double fold measuring 9.5" by 12.5" folded and 19" by 12.5" open. It is accompanied by a four page text insert describing the uniforms depicted in the plate.  The text is in French.   

It is an original hand colored print. Printed in 1962, second edition.

The condition is as shown in the product images which are photographs of the actual plate and accompanying text insert. The plate is in fair condition with some ageing and discoloration. There is a small ink spot and a larger light stain on the back.

Lucien Rousselot, born in 1900 and died in 1992, is a French painter, illustrator, and titular Painter of the French Army. He was born in France at a time when the 1871 military defeat by Prussia was still very present in the psyche of the French people. After all, it had not been long since the French army under Napoleon I had not only amazed the world, but had stood victoriously astride the whole of Europe. Indeed, triumphant armies guided by the military genius of Bonaparte had marched down the avenues of Paris to the delight of enormous crowds.

It is no surprise, therefore, that the talented young Rousselot decided to devote much of his life to recreating the martial splendor of France’s greatest age. The Napoleonic period offered innumerable opportunities for his skills, as uniforms varied widely in style and color, as befitted an age when individual glory still counted for much on Europe’s battlefields.

Rousselot received his artistic training at the renowned School of Decorative Arts in Paris while at the same time immersing himself in the study of the classic military illustrators and became one of the world's most important military artists, playing an integral role in establishing uniformology (the study of military uniforms) as a true science. During his career, as a painter and illustrator of military subjects, he produced an abundant iconography dealing with uniforms worn by the French Army over the period from the 16TH century to the end of the 19TH Century. From the 1920s he collaborated as an illustrator and uniformologist at the magazine Le Passepoil, directed by Eugène-Louis Bucquoy, for whom he also illustrated some of the large series of plates devoted to the uniforms of the First Empire that Bucquoy published between 1907 and 1952, Les Uniformes du Premier Empire. A member of La Sabretache, he also contributed to the magazine Le Carnet de la Sabretache until the 1990s. What is considered his major work is the series of 106 uniformological plates dealing with French uniforms worn during the 18th and 19th centuries L'Armée française, ses uniformes, son armement, son équipement that he made from 1943 to 1971. This series of plates is considered one of the primary reference works on the French uniforms of the 18th and 19th centuries.  

In the 1960’s, he created another set of excellent plates illustrating iconic units of French Napoleonic cavalry: Known as the "Soldats d'Autrefois", there are 4 booklets with 6 plates each and they show the Carabiniers, Hussards, Gardes d’Honneur, and Mamelukes.
 
And in 1969 he published a series of plates on Napoleonic uniforms in collaboration with the SCFH (Societe des Collectionneurs de Figurines Historiques).
 
 
Lucian Rousselot published his famous series of uniform plates, L'Armée Française - ses uniformes, son armament, son équipement, over a thirty year period between 1941 and 1971. When he undertook this project in 1941, he was faced with the incredible problem of finding art supplies in German-occupied Paris and the story goes that German officers, themselves passionate collectors and uniformologists supplied him!

This series of plates, while probably the best source on the regulation dress of the French Army, only covers selected periods.  The 1st Empire, which was Rousselot's passion, is amply covered and the primary focus of the series. The Armies of Louis XV and XVI, the Restoration and the 3rd Empire receive some coverage, but the collector looking outside those periods will have to go elsewhere. 

Each plate is in full color, size 32X24 cm folded and 32X48 opened up, with 4 pages of text (in French) included. The originals were hand-printed and have been long out of print. In the late 1950’s and through the 60’s, the earlier plates were reprinted, also by hand, and are virtually indistinguishable from the first printings except for the dates. In 1978 through 1982, the Napoleonic portion was reprinted photomechanically on glossy paper. While these are high quality reproductions, they just don’t have the subtlety and feel of the originals. The coloring is harsher and the black ink drawing is heavier. In 1987 a small Parisian model figures store undertook the reprinting of the rest of the plates but this was never completed. 

The question of editions versus reprintings is fuzzy and prints don’t follow the same rules as books. I have chosen to number my “editions” based on dates and not necessarily by publisher. All the plates were originally printed from 1943 through 1971. Plates that carry the correct date of the original printing I label as 1st edition. Plates that have dates from about 1956 through 1970 and the date is greater than the original printing date, I label as 2nd edition, even though they are technically a second or third printing of the original prints. Plates dated 1978 through 1982 (and are photomechanically printed on glossy paper) are clearly reprints and I label them 3rd edition. Plates with dates of 1987 and greater are labeled 4th edition.

Today the full series of 106 plates in good condition and consisting of the printings prior to the 1978 reprints can only be found at antiquarian bookstores or auctions and is quite rare. Most often, the plates come up for sale individually or in groups and the prices range quite considerably depending on which edition is being offered and on the condition of the plate. Also, the plates representing the Louis XV and XVI periods, the Restoration, and the Second Empire are much more difficult to find and thus tend to be more expensive. This is partly because they are from eras considered less important than the Napoleonic period and thus fewer of them were printed and also because they were not included in the 1978 reprinting.