Grolier Club, French Book Arts Trade Card Collection
Description
"The French Book Arts Trade Card Collection consists of XX late 19th and early 20th century business cards of French booksellers, print sellers, stationers, and other professionals involved with the book and printing arts. It contains trade cards issued by industry leaders such as Eugène Delâtre, as well as those of lesser known firms. Some of the businesses represented include: Camille Bloch, André Desmoulins, Charles Hessele, Charles Gautier, Maurice Le Garrec, Edmund Sagot, and Octave Uzanne, among others. The majority of the cards were donated to the Grolier Club Library by the art dealer Edward G. Kennedy in 1913.
The Grolier Club was founded in 1884 by a group of nine bibliophiles dedicated to the art and history of the book. The Library was established to serve the primary mission of the Club, which is (to quote from its Constitution) ""to foster the study, collecting, and appreciation of books and works on paper, their art, history, production, and commerce.” It pursues this mission though the maintenance of a collection devoted to all aspects of the book and graphic arts with special strengths in the history of the antiquarian book trade and bibliography. The Library’s holdings of book catalogues are among the most comprehensive in the country; and these, along with the papers of important bibliophiles, bibliographers, and antiquarian book dealers, have long been recognized as an important and often unique resource for Library patrons. The Library is open to the general public by appointment.
