Large octavo trade catalogue for women's corsets, back braces, and other devices for straightening their bodies, illustrated with numerous text wood engravings and eleven full-page chromolithographs by E. Lartaud; bound in publisher's original limp wrappers, price list inserted (toned), corners slightly bumped, otherwise nicely preserved, 10 1/2 x 7 1/4 in.
The text begins with a short illustrated history of medical devices developed to correct back problems and posture from the past, before moving on to the new inventions designed by Rainal Frères. As Virginia Steele writes in her 2001 book, The Corset: A Cultural History, "the corset is probably the most controversial garment in the entire history of fashion." Steele refers to it as an "instrument of torture," and a "coercive apparatus through which patriarchal society controlled women and exploited their sexuality." Although corsets are presented here in a medical context, the fetishization, control and objectification of women's bodies is nonetheless on display. The illustrations render the models naked, headless and defective in one view (before), flanked by the corseted after image. Still headless, but now the female body is trussed and bound in one of Rainal's brightly colored and femininely trimmed devices. Other devices illustrated include a variety of beds meant to immobilize and stretch the body, baby carriages, walking devices, leg trusses, and other similar inventions that resemble instruments of torture.
