Marcelo's Reading and Thinking Log

Every sensible person knows that it is not wise to look under a rock, lest you will find snails and the like. As I am not and, alas, no longer hope to ever become a sensible man, that is precisely what I do all the time, as (hypothetical) readers of this blog no doubt have already noticed.

The collection History of Private Life (Histoire de la vie privée, organized by P. Ariès and G. Duby) comes in two different versions: the expensive one, with lots of images, and the cheaper (but by no means cheap) one, with text only. Having bought the text-only version of volumes 4 and 5 (Brazilian edition), and happening to have with me a loaned copy of the illustrated version of volume 4 (Brazilian edition also), I set out to research the web for some of the images used in it.

The detachable cover of the expensive edition is given as being from the painting Déjeuner dans la serre by one Alberma, in a note in the cover itself. A web search, however, reveals that the real name of the painter is Louise Abbéma. The error was not exclusive to the Brazilian edition, as one can see by reading an interview piece with the volume organizers on the Nouvel Observateur (the date seems to be November 13, 1987), where the painter's name is also spelled wrong. On page 4 it differently informs us that the painting used is Portraits à la campagne by Gustave Caillebotte. This is correct only for the cheaper, text-only edition, but the information is present also in the more expensive one.

The image on page 14 is informed (on page 17) to be a detail of La patrie en danger ou l'enrôlement des volontaires, by François Gérard. There actually is a painting called La patrie en danger (without the alternative title) by that painter. It has nothing to do, however, with the one from which the image was taken. The title is really the one they informed, but the author is Guillaume Guillon Lethière.

What are the odds of so many errors happening so early in a book of more than 600 pages?

Are all expensively illustrated books like that?

I am glad I bought the cheaper edition, but on second thought what is the reliability of the text itself, given all this?

Were the people who took part in this edition overworked and badly payed? In France, of all places?

These are worthy questions, no doubt, but the main lesson is the one given in the first paragraph: do not look under the rock.