COMPAGNIE DES HAUTS-FOURNEAUX etc. FRANCHE-COMTÉ Album des férs spéciaux. c.1867- 1870
4to. (ii)pp, 6 tables (5 double-page) and 34 litho plates. 16 extra double-page or folding litho plts and 1 large and folding litho poster of the Franche-Comté Cie bound into the volume, together with a price list and 6 folding litho plates issued by their agent, Jacquemin, and 7 tinted litho plates showing the application of Jacquemin's patent “Fer Rustique”. 3 ms letters, from the Franche-Comté Cie. to M.Rivtot, bound in front. Contemporary quarter calf, spine repaired. That the rolled wrought-iron I-beam became so widely used in France was almost entirely due to Charles Ferdinand Zorès. The carpenters’ strike in Paris in 1845 gave impetus to the the iron industry, providing motivation for a surge in development and standardization led by Zorès. The first use of such beams in France was in 1849 in a house in Paris (18 Blvd. des Filles-du-Calvaire) built by Zorès and the contractor, Kaulek. Zorès himself became agent to several manufacturers who, at his instigation, offered ready-made I-beams in graduated sizes, and was thus in a strategic position to ensure that they quickly became an accepted and normal part of the vocabulary of the building professions. The present remarkable collection of trade literature put together by M.Auguste Rivtot, “Chef du section à Valence (Drôme)”, shows just how influential Zorès’ work was. It contains a catalogue from the Compagnie des Hauts-Fourneaux, the firm which had acquired the Zorès patents, illustrating full-scale profiles (tinted green) of their own wrought-iron I-beams, angles and tees, rails, rivets and chequered plate, together with various designs of fers Zorès, including his famous “top-hat” shape, derived from forms of rail, from which beams could be much more easily and economically constructed. There are also tables showing spacing of joists and rafters and the size of beams required for different spans and loading.This item alone would be of great interest but bound into the back is a variety of other literature sent by the Company to Rivtot. This extra material includes a splendid poster with full-size profiles of all the Zorés shapes and information from the Company's Paris agent, Jacquemin, concerning both fers Zorès and also his own patented "Fers Rustiques". These are bars of iron (rolled? cast?) in tree-trunk form for decorative use in architecture or landscape; possible applications (gates, ornamental bridges and so on) are shown in a few illustrations at the end of the volume.
£650
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