Versailles, galeries historiques dédiées à S.M. la reine des français
This 1838 Paris album, Versailles, galeries historiques, was issued by Charles Gavard and dedicated to Queen Marie-Amélie of the French, presenting engraved historical scenes from the royal palace collection. The engravings are black-and-white plates on cream paper, mostly crowded groups of figures in period dress: a procession of courtiers, a mounted battle scene with smoke, and a street gathering around a central figure. A designer could take their dense multi-figure compositions and period costume for crowd staging and dramatic historical arrangement.
