Select Secrets: Rare & Important Magicana

[Robert-Houdin] Dantan, Jean-Pierre (Dantan the Younger). Portrait of Jean Eugene Robert-Houdin. Paris, ca. 1848. Fine half-length lithographed profile portrait of the famed French conjurer, holding a cup with dominoes in one hand, a stack of dominoes in the other, and with a gibecière around his waist into which other dominoes fall. Sold with the printed poem that accompanied the portrait in the Album des Dominotiers, a privately printed work (said to have been produced in an edition of 70 copies, for club members only) from which the image was extracted. Approx. 14 x 11”. Tiny holes in margin, else very good. A crisp and bright impression. Said to be one of the earliest portraits of Robert-Houdin. Rare. Le Club du Domino, founded in 1838, was an exclusive association of well-known Frenchmen from the worlds of politics, literature, and the arts. Both Dantan the Younger and Robert-Houdin were members. See Fechner, The Magic of Robert-Houdin (2002), Vol. 1, page 325.