Cham 1840s Sketch Book

The whole of Angoulême comic strip buildings (see HERE) is now called La Cité internationale de la bande dessinée et de l’image. Their museum is now just called: le musée de la bande dessinée. The first decades it used to be called (and is still known by diehards) as the CNBDI or Centre national de la bande dessinée et de l’image.

At Angouleme in January 2011 Paul Karasik made a photograph of an exciting find. He wrote HERE:

The object that Jean-Pierre Mercier is most excited about these days is a new acquisition, a small hand-made journal by one of the most prolific of all French cartoonists; Cham (he completed over 18,000 pages in his lifetime). This booklet is the mythical travel journal of a mythical explorer. It is a beautiful object and it fits in the palm of one’s hand… I know.

Thierry Smolderen had more to say at 21.01.2011 on the Platinum list:

Jean-Pierre Mercier from the CBDI gave us a short illustrated presentation of a great acquisition recently made by the CIBDI Centre de documentation : an original sketchbook by Cham containing an (unfinished) picture story and many other drawings (costumes for some theatrical production etc). The unpublished story presents the adventures and travels of a Mr Trouillard, It is dated 1846-47, and I wonder (this is pure conjecture) if Cham didn't mean it to be published in serial form after his version of Mr Cryptogamme's adventures was published in L'Illustration. More research needs to be done about it, obviously (it is a recent acquisition), but Jean-Pierre gave us a taste of the historical research that completely convinced him that this un-signed sketch book was really drawn by Cham's hand.


*And a rare lost DINO page HERE