3-028-321 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Street Characters of Paris: the Boulevard des Italiens, 1870. '...the very centre of lounging Parisian life - the head-quarters, in fact, of that great army of flaneurs who comprise among their ranks men of fortune and position as well as of fashion and pleasure, politicians, financiers, journalists, romance writers, vaudevilleists, actors, and artists...some celebrities of this class have been hit off by our Artist's pencil...the figure at the extreme left is Albert Wolff, the chroniqueur of the Figaro...The stout figure beside him is Timothée Trimm, who made the fortune of the Petit Journal...In the background are the actors Dèsiré and Léonce, two stars of the Bouffes Parisiens and the Variétés; and in front is a well-known speculator on the Bourse...in the central group we have a genuine boulevardier seizing the hands of a friend...In the background [are] a noted bon-vivant...a stockbroker's clerk, with his leather case...a Parisian elegant, of the very latest type, and member, of course, of the Jockey Club. Following is a distinguished musician, with a Parisienne of the period on his arm...the figure who brings up the rear is Count de Noe, the celebrated caricaturist of the Charivari, better known under his pseudonym of Cham'. From "Illustrated London News", 1870.