Antique 1888 Gems Of French Art Photogravure Plates Nims Knight HC Decorative For Sale

Gems of French Art Reproduced in Photogravure, with Descriptive Text is a late‑19th‑century deluxe volume presenting high‑quality photogravure reproductions of paintings by leading French artists of the era. Issued by Nims & Knight in Troy, New York, the book gathers plates after works shown at the Paris Salons and in major French collections, typically including academic, historical, genre, and landscape subjects. Each image is printed on heavy stock and accompanied by a facing‑page essay describing the painter, subject, composition, and critical reception, aimed at an Anglophone audience eager for Continental culture. The volume aligns with contemporaneous British projects linked to William Bell Scott that popularized “gems” of national schools through high‑end photographic and photogravure processes. Today it is valued both for its large, richly inked plates—often suitable for framing—and as a document of Victorian taste for French academic art.
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