YOUNG GUARD IMPERIAL TIRAILLEURS FIRST EMPIRE: STRASBOURG SOLDIERS CARDBOARD FIGURINE GOUACHE PAINTED BY THE WURTZ FAMILY, SECOND HALF OF THE 19th CENTURY, AROUND 1815-1848. 31156-9

YOUNG GUARD IMPERIAL RIFLEMEN FIRST EMPIRE: STRASBOURG SOLDIERS CARDBOARD TOY FIGURE gouache painted by the WURTZ family, second third of the 19th century, around 1815-1848. 31156-9

Three pedestrians, H from the bottom of the base to eye level 8.5 cm.
Mounted on a wooden base.

France.
First half of the 19th century.
Good condition.

PROVENANCE:
Former Wurtz-Pees collection, then Saint-Aubin, and private collection.
Monsieur Marcel Saint-Aubin, was a collector who became an antiquarian between the two World Wars. To my knowledge, no biography or article has ever been published about this figure who is nevertheless known to collectors and is often mentioned in the provenance of historical objects, often of great quality. This is why I will open my archives to better introduce this great connoisseur:
"Mobilized during the First World War along with his brother in the infantry, the latter was killed at Verdun. Both shared the same passion for military memorabilia; both drew and published their drawings in the magazine 'La Giberne' before 1914.
After the war, he set up as an antiquarian. In 1926, he lived at 108 rue de Ménilmontant (Paris 20ᵉ), far from the usual antique dealer districts. His choice was in the specialty that had attracted him for a long time: military curiosities. The spark that led him towards this specialty came from his first find: an officer's sabre from the Consulate era, his first beautiful sabre; he called it his 'lucky charm' and always kept it.
The profession of antique dealer allowed Saint-Aubin to see and possess these objects for a while. A discerning connoisseur, he never made mistakes, and his clients benefited from his expertise. A passionate researcher, everything he discovered in his life was astonishingly varied. Silent and modest, he had an art and a manner that left an indelible memory with the admirers who knew him.
Like most dealers of military objects of that time, Marcel Saint-Aubin did not have a shop. He received clients in his apartment, where few objects were found and they only occupied a temporary space. Usually, like Paul Jean, he would fetch the objects he wanted to sell in the neighboring room and would present them often without saying anything, with a slight smile, or if the presented object was truly exceptional, he would simply say, without raising his voice, 'It's top-notch...'.
In June 1940, during the occupation, he left for Guingamp. He returned to Paris where he resettled at the end of 1951, in the house he had acquired, 16 rue Henri Pape, in the 13th arrondissement, once again, far from the antique dealer district.
His love for the objects he parted with extended to the care he took in their packaging. Very skilled with his hands, he perfectly protected even the most modest piece.
Marcel Saint-Aubin died at the age of 83, taking with him the esteem of all who knew him, leaving behind the memory of a man of great moral values."

HISTORICAL CONTEXT:
The Strasbourg soldiers are card figures, "flat" soldiers, cut out from rigid cardboard. In most cases, these soldiers are drawn and then printed on sheets to multiply their number more easily.
Christian Blondieau in his work "Small soldiers of lead, tin, paper, cardboard... 1765-1965 - The collector's guide" Editions Le Képi Rouge Paris 1996, specifies for the cardboard soldiers:
"[...] unlike paper soldiers intended more for children, often clumsily colored, the cardboard soldier is created for adults and provides a guarantee of great uniformological precision, which serves as a basis for our modern documentation...
Why are the little soldiers from Alsace referenced? Because in the majority of cases, they were created by eyewitnesses of the time or their descendants, and are often contemporary to the era they represent.
During the wars of the Revolution and the Empire, the inhabitants of Strasbourg (a garrison town at the time) saw a large number of soldiers with colorful uniforms passing through their streets, heading to fight in Germany.
This flood of troops, which lasted for more than fifteen years, gave some people the idea to 'sketch' these beautiful soldiers in real time.
Alsatian authors agree to cite Benjamin Zix (1772-1811) as the precursor of the genre. Anticipating Léopold Beyer, the German Geisler or the Austrian Klein, the Alsatian Zix gives us a very realistic view of the soldiers of the time, as he was a fighter himself, traversing battlefields more often armed with a pencil than a rifle. He became an Army Officer draftsman.
From the peace of 1815 to the war of 1914, Strasbourg artists continued this need to draw and paint from generation to generation[...] ".
During the First Empire, Strasbourg had approximately 30,000 inhabitants, with a permanent garrison of between 6,000 and 10,000 soldiers. This city was also a necessary passage for countless troops of the Revolution and the Grand Army heading for campaigns beyond the Rhine.
Of all these artists, and for this period, the three most well-known are: Thiébaut Borerst (incorrectly spelled Boersch) (1782-1824), a miller who began drawing around 1800, the nephew of the painter Benjamin Zix, his collection was dispersed at an auction in Angers on 10 March 1971, his style is probably the most accomplished that we know of. Eugène Nicollet (1802-1872) who painted his soldiers from as early as 1817 (when he was 15 years old) and continued for 55 years, his collection is preserved in the Museum of Compiègne, his style is more naive. Wurtz, to whom we dedicate a specific paragraph. Paul Schmidt, whose each figurine is annotated on the back with the name of the soldier as 'sketched', this collection preserved in the Musée de l'Armée in Paris has the characteristic of representing the soldiers of the National Guard of Strasbourg, among others.
Other artists also worked in a similar way: Frédérik Schmidt (born in 1796). But we can also mention Édouard Kratz (1803-1885), Schmidt son (born in 1824), Théodore Carl (born in 1837)...

WURTZ-PEEZ COLLECTION (Würtz German spelling):
Wurtz began his documentation under the First Empire thanks to his friend J.P LÉvêque, a former surgeon of the Grand Army who had gathered significant documentation on Napoleon's armies. He began making his figurines as early as 1825 with the help of his son and then Pees, his father-in-law. The production continued under the son, who completed his collection with the help of his father-in-law Mr. Pees in a 'Napoleonic' style under the Second Republic (1850), some of the figurines we present have the date 1848 on the back of the cardboard. These figurines are of very high quality. Author Edward Ryan in his work "Paper Soldiers the illustrated history of printed paper armies of the 18th, 19th & 20th centuries" (Golden Age Editions, London 1995) writes, "the most accurate and comprehensive representation of troops of the First Empire." Each regiment is represented in all ranks and types of uniforms exhaustively, which is rare in representations of the Strasbourg soldiers.
The son of Mr. Wurtz, Frédéric Wurtz, likely completed the uniforms he did not observe himself from other documentary sources.
After the fall of the Second Empire, Frédéric Wurtz refused to stay in Strasbourg under Prussian occupation and came to settle in Paris on Boulevard de Clichy, where he ran a pharmacy. Following his death in 1898, the majority of his collection - nearly 16,000 figurines - was donated to the Musée de l’Armée on 1st October 1899 by his widow and his son, a senior medical officer; they were exhibited there in 1938 and have remained there since. Expert specialist Christian Blondieau judges Wurtz's style to be comparable to that of Nicollet and Kratz.