Toilet, The.
Teaching Virtue Through Humor
One Man’s Attempt
[Domestic]. Grimaldi, Stacey. The Toilet. London: Stacey Grimaldi, 1821.
12mo.; nine hand-colored, engraved plates with pop-up flaps; light offsetting to endpapers; tan printed paper-covered boards. In a specially made cloth slipcase.
Second edition of Grimaldi’s cunningly didactic text, illustrated by his father, portrait artist William Grimaldi. Stacey was inspired to write and publish this book encouraging traditional feminine virtues through illustrations of common items of women’s toiletry after seeing his father’s drawings of items from his sister’s dressing table: a mirror, a bottle of perfume, and a jewelry box. Each delicately detailed engraving in the book cleverly disguises a virtue behind a lift-up flap of a material object, followed by a short verse explaining the benefits women will reap by heeding its message; an “enchanting mirror” stands for humility, a “wash to smooth wrinkles” for contentment, a bottle labeled a “universal and genuine beautifier” for good humor, a “matchless pair of ear rings” for attention, “best-white paint” for innocence, “rouge superieur ne se vend pas a Paris” for modesty, “a mixture of sweetness to the voice” for mildness and truth, a “fine lip salve” for cheerfulness, and “the late King’s eye water” for benevolence.
The Toilet earned instant success as a popular and humorous diversion at parties, even spurring imitations and starting pop-up book craze. Grimaldi published a similar volume for boys in 1823 entitled A Suit of Armor for Youth, in which he substitutes pieces of armor for dressing-table items.
(#5625)
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