France.- Paris on fire.- Paris Incendié, 23 plates, hand-coloured and heightened with gum arabic, some double-page, on pull-out concertina panorama, contemporary ink ownership name on pastedown, original red pepple-grain cloth, gilt, a little stained and mottled, heavier to lover cover, [c.1875]; and c.25 others, panoramas, souvenirs, a carte de visites album, and views, v.s. (c.25)

⁂ The main item is very visceral souvenir in memory of the unrelenting siege of Paris that took place by 1870-1871 and ended in the capture of the city by Prussian forces. The fires of Paris during the Commune were the premeditated destruction of monuments and residential buildings in Paris mainly during Bloody Week, the period when Paris was recaptured by the Versailles army from Sunday 21 May to Sunday 28 May 1871.

The others in the lot are more traditional Victorian souvenir panoramas and views, mostly of the same monuments of Paris though decidedly less burnt.