Summer Fashion for 1830

This print, until now ascribed to Franz B. Dörbeck, showing a couple from behind with a lady in the background coming towards them, is extremely unusual for him. Dörbeck arrived in Berlin in 1823 and quickly made a name for himself with his humorous depictions of Berlin life, but did not actually do any fashion caricatures from drawings of his own. It has now been established that in this example he copied a French original entitled ‘Mode de l’année prochaine’ by Charles Philipon, which was published in Paris in November 1829. In Berlin, the illustration gave rise to a lengthy controversy with the censors on the grounds that it allegedly offended public morals. The Royal Police Headquarters prohibited the Gropius brothers from publishing this illustration because it was “obscene”. The Gropius brothers challenged this decision in a letter of 15 June 1830 on the grounds that the print had been “faithfully copied from a French original”, the sale of which was not prohibited, in order not to send the money out of the country, which was not as insignificant as it may have appeared “as we know from experience that more than 1,000 copies of the same thing can easily be sold”. On 20 July, rather late for selling this motif intended for the Summer months, the Gropius brothers finally got permission to distribute the print, subject, however, to the condition that the “parts illustrated in flesh colour” should be darkened. On 5 August 1830, Police Inspector Mertke noted in his final report that he had found the fashion caricatures “all in the darkened manner” at the local art dealers and even at the publishing house of the Gropius brothers themselves.