PAUL BALLURIAU (1860-1917) LE JOURNAL / LA TOURNÉE DES GRANDS-DUCS. Circa 1899. 44 3/4x61 inches, 114x155 cm. P. Dupont, Paris. Condition B+: restored losses, repaired tears, creases and restoration in margins and image; horizontal folds. Le Journal was a popular daily newspaper that specialized in serializing realistic novels about the Parisian demimonde. Dubut de Laforest wrote many novels with suitably socially oriented themes and the newspaper frequently published his work. Balluriau was primarily a book and magazine illustrator who was a friend of Theofile-Alexandre Steinlen. The two men worked together as co-directors of the satirical magazine Gil Blas. For this story about a Grand Duke's tour, Balluriau shows the man himself, with his well-attired cocotte. Illuminated by a circle of light emanating from a hand-held lantern, they are making their way through the Montmartre night, surrounded by the indigent and lower working classes. That they are dramatically out of place in the neighborhood is made forebodingly clear by Balluriau's illustration. The theme of such an intersection of classes always made for popular reading.
