Dame Tartine
[Paris], Flammarion, [1929]. Maze, Marisol & Maze, Renée. Dame Tartine. [Flammarion]: [Paris], [1929. 4to (220x265mm) illust stiff card, stapled, cloth bnd, [22]pp.
Second-hand hardcover
MARISOL and MAZE, Renée.
Dame Tartine. Nous dédions Dame Tartine à tous les petits gourmands de France.
Paris : Flammarion, [1929]. Printed by Stribick, Fally et Cie, Clichy. Issue price 10 francs.
Oblong (220 × 270 mm) original colour-illustrated stiff card covers, the leaves stapled through the inner margin and the staples concealed beneath a pink cloth spine; replacement glassine wrappers. 10 leaves of light stiff card, printed recto and verso, the rectos with full-page colour illustrations and the versos with the corresponding text. Covers lightly foxed; corners gently bruised, with a small loss to the lower corner of the upper cover; card leaves creased at the hinges from opening. Otherwise internally clean and well preserved.
¶ An illustrated presentation of the traditional French children's song Dame Tartine. The opening leaf gives the score for Il était une Dame Tartine in G major and 6/8 time; the following nine leaves each present a couplet illustrated in vivid colour with cakes, pastries and sweets appearing as human figures, against a world of confectionery buildings. Dame Tartine's palace has walls of praline, a floor of croquets and a bedroom of petits pâtés. Monsieur Gimblette is dressed in galette and fromage blanc.
The song appears in print in Jean-Baptiste Weckerlin's Chansons et rondes enfantines (1870), in F major, in a version including Monsieur de Gimblette, Charlotte and Prince Limonade. The Maze version is an extended adaptation rather than a transcription of Weckerlin's text: Charlotte and Prince Limonade do not appear, while the intervening couplets tell the story of the marriage of Dame Tartine and Monsieur Gimblette. Their wedding takes place in a church of brioche, with a Saint-Honoré as priest and a prune as sexton; the wedding guests bring confectionery gifts, followed by a ball and a family of children, all beignets. In the traditional conclusion, the wicked fairy Carabosse destroys the confectionery palace. The narrative then turns directly to the parents of the child readers, who are exhorted to rebuild the palace by giving their children sugar.
The cover credits Marisol and Renée Maze. Renée is Renée-Marguerite Maze (1888–1980), illustrator and painter. Marisol may be a pseudonym for her sister Adrienne Louise Jeanne Andrée Maze (1891–1984), known as La Mazille, who published La Bonne Cuisine du Périgord with Flammarion in the same year, illustrated by Renée.
The Dame Tartine tradition also has a modern Périgord connection: since 2021 the Festival du Livre Gourmand at Périgueux has awarded a Prix Dame Tartine for children's books concerned with food and cookery. The festival also awards the Prix La Mazille, named for Andrée Maze.
Scarce.
Item #11789
Price: $225.00 AUD