Album de 63 Modèles de Cottages et Construction Rurales
This album showing 63 models of cottages and rural architecture was published by Albin Michel, Paris, in 1912. The hardcover edition measures 37×27 cm and has 175 pages, with 63 plates illustring small rural constructions with groundfloors. It’s bound in green half cloth with colored illustrated boards.
The title page shown above exhibits a colorful mix of typefaces from the Belle Époque. The first line is set in a typeface issued by Deberny & Cie around 1900 as Les Modernes. Today it’s better known under the name used by English foundry Stephenson Blake, De Vinne Ornamented. “Modèles de Contrats” shows the condensed width, Les Modernes étroit. “Album de 63 Modèles” uses a typeface with American roots: Washington (Central, c. 1886) was available from various European foundries, including Haas in Switzerland (as Columbia) and Van Loey-Nouri in Brussels (as Fantaisies). The largest type is German: Herold was first cast by Berthold in 1901. It has several alternates and is here used with two different forms for C. The condensed sans serif used in all caps is unidentified. The italic chosen for the line below is the one from Grasset (Peignot & Fils). Its roman is used in all caps for “avec prix à forfait” (without accents). The publisher’s name is set in Française, which is a narrow version of Auriol.
See more plates from this book in the Flickr album by Patricia M (taffeta).
