Description

Eighteen Square Feet of Marvelous Prints, French, c. 1860’s. Each large plate measures approximately 12″ x 18″ (30 x 46 cm), mounted on card 16-1/2″ x 22-1/2″. The plates are engraved and lithographed by Willaeys, and printed by Leroy at 66 r. des Marais in Paris. They are colored and preserved with a wonderful freshness, depicting a wide range of electric devices including hand-cranked and liquid-battery-powered electro-medical devices (with one known as the “American apparatus”), galvanoplasty and telegraph instruments, Ramsden electrostatic machine, etc.

The constructors were established at 57 rue du Faubourg St. Denis in Paris, and had an outlet in London. We find record of Biloret at that address in 1864, but find the firm at 93 blvd. Richard-Lenoir in an 1883 electrical directory. Biloret and Mora seem to have been significant Parisian manufacturers of early and ingenious electrical devices, but rarely if ever signed their products. An exquisite group, in excellent condition.