Le Beau Casse-Cœur - Victor Jacques Bertauts

A nineteenth-century French lithograph cover for the sheet music Le Beau Casse-Cœur, featuring a domestic scene of a man and woman in a salon.

This lithographic print serves as the cover for a piece of sheet music titled Le Beau Casse-Cœur, with lyrics and composition by Edmond Lhuillier. Published in Paris by J. Meissonnier fils, the work captures the aesthetic conventions of mid-nineteenth-century French popular music publications. The illustration depicts a domestic interior scene, featuring a woman in a voluminous gown standing beside a table, while a man reclines on a sofa nearby. The composition employs a balanced arrangement, typical of the period, with architectural details such as a twisted column and a framed oval picture on the wall providing depth to the setting.

Victor Jacques Bertauts, a known lithographer of the era, utilised fine hatching and stippling techniques to create tonal variations within the monochrome print. The figures are rendered with a focus on contemporary fashion, reflecting the bourgeois lifestyle often depicted in popular prints of the time. The inclusion of the publisher's details, the price, and a list of other works by the same composer provides a clear view of the commercial nature of this object. The presence of a G. Schirmer stamp suggests the print circulated internationally, reaching markets in New York as well as Paris. This piece offers a glimpse into the visual culture of the nineteenth-century salon, where music and art were integrated into the daily lives of the middle class. The print retains its original typographic layout, which frames the central illustration and provides context for its intended use as a musical score cover. The paper shows signs of age, including minor edge wear, which is consistent with its history as a functional item of ephemera.