“Bouguinistes”  


Although these “bouquinistes”, the iconic  booksellers along the Seine with Notre Dame in the background, look like bread and butter souvenir art (they probably are) I found them far more attractive than the hundreds of other examples that can be picked-up at almost every flea-market and charity shop. Besides: nobody seems to have ever been seriuously interested in the maker: Victor Valérey. Read some interesting new discoveries and facts in his short-biography (in the book & in this case: click his name 

Agreed, Victor is no Tavik Franisek Simon,  he is not August Lepère, Henri Rivière of August Delàtre. Please judge for yourself. 

In the meantime I will be on the look out for more affordable examples by this “small master”. 


The last example (below)is the court yard of Hôtel de Cluny, the medieval Paris residence of the abbots of Cluny. (See also an etching by H.A.H. Marcus)