Printers Imprimerie de Chardon

Don Herbison-Evans (donherbisonevans@yahoo.com) and Stella Crossley

The firm represents a generational dynasty of elite French art printers. • The Foundation: The original workshop was established in 1818 by the patriarch, known as "Chardon the elder" (Chardon père), initially on Rue Pierre-Sarrazin before moving into the Rue Hautefeuille. • François Chardon (Chardon aîné): Around 1850, the eldest son, François Chardon, took complete control of the primary workshop. His tenure (roughly stretching from the 1820s in partnership to 1860) represents the peak era of natural history book production in France. • The Succession: In 1862, the firm was passed down to the younger brother, Charles Chardon, who eventually transitioned the expanding business to larger quarters at 10 Rue de l'Abbaye

The historical address 30 Rue Hautefeuille, Paris placed the Chardon workshop right at the geographic center of the mid-19th-century French scientific boom. • The Proximity Advantage: The shop shared a narrow, cobblestone street grid with the publisher Librairie Encyclopédique de Roret (the driver behind the Suites à Buffon series) and scientific publisher J.-B. Baillière. • The Workplace: Unlike text-printing houses filled with noisy mechanical letterpresses, Chardon aîné’s rooms were dedicated to heavy, hand-cranked rolling cylinder presses. Because pulling an intaglio print required forcing thick, damp paper down into the incised metal grooves under extreme pressure, the work was physically taxing, slow, and relied completely on the manual touch of master pressmen.

Chardon aîné ran his shop not just as a manufacturing facility, but as an elite training ground for the next generation of French printmaking legends. For example, Alfred Salmon—who would go on to become arguably the most famous French intaglio printer of the late 19th century (printing for major fine art portfolios and Salons)—completely learned the craft of taille-douce manipulation as a young apprentice under Chardon aîné at the Rue Hautefeuille location

While Chardon handled the uncredited bulk printing of massive natural history plate suites for publishers like Roret, their signed commercial credits can be found on highly complex artistic and scientific commissions of the era: • They printed the deeply detailed plates for Achille Comte's monumental Musée d'Histoire Naturelle (1854). • They executed fine cultural and topographical works, including premium steel-engraved plates of global scenery and historical events published by Furne. • They specialized in capturing microscopic scientific details, making them the default choice for authors tracking the complex wing patterns, scaling, and anatomy of lepidoptera.

The printing press only ever touched black or dark brown ink for these sheets. The rolling press pulled a single impression from the metal plate onto the paper, transferring only the fine structural outlines, shading lines, and scales of the moths. When the sheets left the printshop, they were entirely black-and-white.

Every single patch of color you see on an original copy of these plates was painted onto the paper by hand using watercolors and gouache, after the text and black outlines were completely dry. The publisher, Roret, hired workshops of professional colorists (frequently staffed by low-wage women and apprentices working in assembly lines) to paint the sheets. One person would apply the yellow washes to the wings, the next would layer the blue or orange patterns, and a final master colorist would add tiny highlights or brush a layer of gum arabic over the top to give the moth wings a realistic, iridescent sheen. Because hand-painting thousands of sheets was incredibly expensive, Roret sold this book in two distinct formats: a cheaper "plain" black-and-white edition for general students, and a luxury "colored" edition (planches coloriées) for wealthy collectors.

A typical print run was up to 1,000 copies of each volume, of which around 300 were coloured.

Copies of illustrations printed by Imprimerie Chardon for Guenée used in this website -

CASTNIIDAE

Synemon parthenoides engraved by Corbié,

GEOMETRIDAE

Amblychia angeronaria engraved by Clergé.	Amelora sparsularia engraved by Corbié,	Androchela milvaria engraved by Clergé.	Chlenias auctaria engraved by Corbié,
Gastrina cristaria engraved by Clergé.	Gastrinodes bitaeniaria engraved by Clergé.	Melanodes anthracitaria engraved by Clergé.	Mnesampela privata engraved by Corbié,
Paralaea beggaria engraved by Corbié.	Smyriodes aplectaria engraved by Corbié

in progress

Australian butterflies

Australian Lepidoptera

Lepidoptera artists

Australian moths

(written 29 October 2026, updated 8 November 2026)