COLLECTION NAME:
David Rumsey Historical Map Collection
Record
Author:
Belloguet, Andre
Date:
1867
Short Title:
L’Europe Comique.
Publisher:
Beer editeur, Lith. Jannin
Publisher Location:
Paris, France
Type:
Puzzle Map
Obj Height cm:
45
Obj Width cm:
62
Note:
Shows the individual parts to the puzzle.
Reference:
Bringing the map to life: European satirical maps 1845-1945 - Roderick M. Barron
World Area:
Europe
Subject:
Pictorial map
Subject:
Satirical
Full Title:
L’Europe Comique, par A. Belloguet, Cocasserie dediée à la Jeunesse.
List No:
10147.002
Series No:
2
Publication Author:
Belloguet, Andre
Pub Date:
1867
Pub Title:
L’Europe Comique, par A. Belloguet, Cocasserie dediée à la Jeunesse.
Pub Note:
"André Belloguet’s L’Europe Comique, subtitled Cocasserie, dediée à la Jeunesse [Beer editeur, Lith. Jannin, Paris, France, 1867] is an equally remarkable creation, an outlandish riot of different physiognomies and expressive faces whose shapes roughly follow the established political boundaries of contemporary Europe. Most dominant amongst them is the giant figure of Russia, a cultured and erudite gentleman sporting a wide-brimmed hat and wearing a monacle. This may perhaps symbolise Russia’s growing cultural self-expression in the fields of literature, music and the arts.Whether Belloguet’s map had any deeper meanings beyond mere cocasserie (foolery) is not at all clear. Certainly it appears to lack any discernible political overtones and claims simply to “amuser et instruire” (amuse and instruct). The art of physiognomy sought to deduce hidden personal traits and characteristics from the visible features and expressions of an individual’s face. The sister science of phrenology, equally popular in the 19th Century, was the supposed method by which similar individual character and personality traits, even a propensity towards criminality, could be determined by expert examination of the shape and form of the head. Many scholars have previously noted these close affinities between symbolic cartography and phrenology and physiognomy. Indeed Belloguet’s enduring fascination with the human face and with an individual’s hidden character and personality traits as the basis for caricature and satire is vividly apparent in his subsequent work, Pilori-Phrénologie, a series of twelve political caricature portraits produced at the time of the Franco-Prussian War in 1871. In one, entitled Bismarckoff I, the figure of German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck is transformed into a vile malevolent grotesque, blood dripping from his moustache and mouth. Symbolic images of a Krupp cannon appear on his right cheek and a political spider’s web of Europe on his forehead, on which Germany’s closest neighbours – France, Austria, Denmark and Holland – are depicted as trapped & dying flies." Source: Bringing the map to life: European satirical maps 1845-1945 - Roderick M. Barron
Pub List No:
10147.000
Pub Type:
Puzzle Map
Pub Height cm:
45
Pub Width cm:
62
Image No:
10147002.jp2
Authors:
Belloguet, Andre
