Paris-Théatre première année 1873-1874 1873 - 1874

This is the frontispiece of a book entitled "Paris-Théatre," printed in France around 1873-1874 by Eugène Paz. The labor involved in making books like this is easy to overlook, but it was considerable. Consider all that was required: the felling of trees to make paper, the mixing of ink, the typesetting, printing, and binding – all skilled crafts, undertaken by an entire workshop of workers. Even the letterforms were likely based on a proprietary design, carefully managed as intellectual property. The design is clean and efficient, a hallmark of commercial printing at this time. This was a moment when the value of reproducible images and text was skyrocketing, and the industrial processes for producing them were becoming ever more refined. Though we might not think of it as such, the illustrated book represents a powerful convergence of design, materiality, and the social context of labor. It is a testament to the value of these printed forms in 19th-century France.