Figure 322
Sheet from folio Specimen of Molé jeune, Paris
From Collection Typographique Gravée sur Acier par Molé Jeune, Breveté du Roi (scan)
1819
At the Exposition du Louvre of 1819, the Parisian type-founder Molé jeune…exhibited a series of fourteen great broadsides, surrounded with wide borders, which is one of the most magnificent type-specimens known. These sheets exhibit the result of twenty-seven years of personal labour—206 varieties of roman, italic, civilité, Greek, Hebrew, Rabbinical Hebrew, Arabic, Smaritan, Syraic, and also a fine series of roman titling-letters. In addition there are 468 borders (very varied in design and many of great beauty), rules, etc. The roman and italic are of the Didot style, and (except for the titling-letters) are less mechanical than is usual in such fonts. They show this kind of type at its best, though owing much to the splendid presswork of Pierre Didot l’aîné.
As a conspectus of the best French type of its day, Molé’s fourteen Tableaux are classic.