PCT4266719: Postcard of the beautiful period (years 1920-1930) signed by the painter Xavier Sager (1870-1930) who specialised in this type of illustration. La Maison ou l'on cause = the house of pleasure = maison close Mere mackerelle presenting young women naked (or half-naked) to old men. Prostitution. / Bridgeman Images
PCT4266907: The “donkey tower”: old country custom. In Carcassonne (Aude, Languedoc), in the neighborhood of the Cite Medievale, on the day of Saint Nazaire (patron of the Cite), the youngest wife of the year walks on a donkey to the joy of the population. Postcard beginning 20th century. / Bridgeman Images
PCT4266951: group of women and children in an automobile: set of two photographic plates on anonymous glass, early 20th century. The two clicks present two different poses, one sharp, the other where the characters have moved. The photographer adjusts his camera differently for both poses, giving a more contrast to the bottom cliche. / Bridgeman Images
PCT4267767: A French translation of Pinocchio around 1920-1930, reproducing a drawing by Carlo Chiostri (1863-1939), one of the first Italian illustrators of Collodi's work. Geppetto, who just sculpted the puppet in a buche, is adjusting his arms and legs when Pinocchio takes his wig and puts it on his own head. / Bridgeman Images
PCT4267924: First illuminated page of a 14th century manuscript (anonymous copist) of letters of Petrarch (Petrarca) written before his death in 1374. The first capital (illumination of a capital O) is adorned with this portrait of the poet depicting it in its old days. (Rerum Senilium Liber, Carcassonne Library). / Bridgeman Images
PCT4267968: Fricks and catches: humor and “good taste”” francais. Two examples of “” jokes” practiced in France, “” Pays des Lumieres””: the pecker cushion and fake business cards. One reads this immortal trick: Simon Cussonet, Church Square, Tussorel (Eure). If my butt sounded in church place, you'd know the time! Articles marketed around 1950. / Bridgeman Images
PCT4268011: Succession of drawings representing various expressions and feelings expressed by the face and hands: 1, silence - 2, negation - 3, beauty - 4, hunger - 5, derision - 6, fatigue - 7, stupidity - 8, fatical. Catalogue of Neapolitan gestures published in 1832 by Andrea de Jorio. / Bridgeman Images
PCT4268052: Franc Maconnerie: view of a lodge in Paris in 1740. Anonymous engraving reproduced in F.T.B.-Clavel's book “” Picturesque Histoire de la Franco-Maconnerie et des Societes Secretes Antique et Monte”, 1844. “The lodges were generally united in a private room of some inn whose sign served as a distinctive sign... Usually [for fear of a police search] the iconic picture of the rank at which the work was held was marked with chalk on the floor and erased after the session with a wet sponge.” / Bridgeman Images
PCT4268138: Photographic portrait in the studio of the German bodybuilder Eugen Sandow (1867-1925) by Benjamin j. Falk (1853-1925) in 1894. Sandow is widely regarded as the father of modern bodybuilding. He used elastic strippers for his training, which today bear his name: the sandows. In this photograph, he bears the medal he just won in Italy. / Bridgeman Images
PCT4268181: Henry Gauthier-Villars (Gauthier Villars), dit Willy (1859- 1931), a French journalist, music critic and novelist, husband of Colette, whose first novels he signed (the series of Claudines) before it started. Willy poses here with his famous top hat and dog Toby for photographer Gerschel around 1896. / Bridgeman Images