Souvenirs de l'Angleterre, with a letter from Madame Delahaye, 1826-1850

An album of twenty watercolors recording the 1826 journey to England by the Delahaye family of Pierrefitte, France. A family friend, Gaudissard traveled with them from their home near Saint-Denis, carefully recording the sights they saw across the Channel. His drawings include landscapes, cityscapes, and various views, each inscribed with a caption. Scenes of London include a depiction of a typical city street, St. James's Palace from the Pall Mall, the interior of the Tower of London, and the interior of the Henry VII Chapel at Westminster Palace. He captured the countryside near Richmond, the seaside at Brighton and the Royal Pavilion there, Windsor Castle and a view of London as seen from Windsor, and Christopher Wren's Monument in London, as seen from Greenwich. Gaudissard shows his pictorial range with a night scene of Brighton and a depiction of a strenuous boat race on the Thames. Among other images are the Duke of Devonshire's menagerie at Chiswick House, only in existence between 1811 and 1836, featuring an elephant and a monkey, and an Anglican priest in the pulpit at Canterbury. Two drawings depict friends at Pierrefitte wave goodbye to the Delahaye carriage as it departs, and then welcoming the family with open arms upon their return home. The album's frontispiece features a classic coach-and-four alighting into the English mist, and at the end a record of the family's departure from Dover, its White Cliffs in the background, aboard an early steamship

Accompanied by a 16-page letter dated 1826, written in French, addressed by Madame L. Delahaye to her friend Alexandrine upon the Delahayes' return from England. The letter recounts the family's journey in great detail from start to finish, and includes several mentions of the lively participation of Gaudissard. Also present is a single leaf, written approximately 1850, describing the genesis of the album and brief biographical sketch of the artist