Promenades pittoresques à Montmartre

Until the nineteenth century, Montmartre was a rural little village on a hillside north of Paris. The pride of the village was a group of twenty windmills, the most famous of which, the 'Moulin Rouge' and the 'Moulin La Galette', were drawn by Eugène Véder. They were known in the nineteenth century as dance centres for a diverse audience: rich civil servants, housewives and prostitutes. Butte Montmartre was located on the hilltop. In the daytime, the atmosphere was funereal, but at night it would come to life, as poets and painters, criminals and bums tried to find their place at the massive tables in café cabaret 'Le Lapin Agile' to chat about art until the early morning hours.

Francis Carco arrived in Paris in 1910 and wound up in 'Le Lapin Agile', where he soon came into touch with other regulars like Picasso, Max Jacob, Apollinaire and André Salmon. Carco found it hard to get any work as a writer at the time, but the lively conversations in the café gave him renewed courage. He got to know each street and every corner of Montmartre over the course of the years. The inhabitants of Montmartre were also described in his work; the homosexual pimp instance,featured in La bohème et mon coeur (1912).

Livre d'art

Promenades pittoresques à Montmartre is considered a Livre d'Art for its combination of texts with drawings, lithographs and engravings. Carco's descriptions of Montmartre's habits, visitors and style were illustrated by Eugène Louis Véder, who worked as an engraver, draughtsman and illustrator from 1922 onwards. Montmartre and Paris often made up the subject of his etchings and engravings. In Promenades pittoresques à Montmartre he sketched the dilapidated little houses of Montmartre with equal care as he did the broad avenues and stately Parisian houses. An original charcoal drawing by Véder has been added to the copy in the Koopman Collection: an image of the Rue du Mont-Cenis.