54 - Album amicorum dedicated to Madame Aimée Victoire Jeannette Lahure, née Duvivier.

Album amicorum dedicated to Madame Aimée Victoire Jeannette Lahure, née Duvivier. Album, in-4 format, bound in blue percaline, marked on the front cover “Album” within a gold diamond-shaped medallion with small ironwork, the spine is plain with gold fillet decoration, containing a collection of sheet music, drawings, and poems dedicated to Madame Lahure, interspersed with letters addressed to General Félix-Corneille Lahure (1800–1882), her husband. The binding shows signs of wear; some pages have been cut out and are missing. It notably includes musical dedications composed by Belgian composers and musicians such as Charles-Auguste de Bériot (1802–1870), Léopold von Meyer (1816–1883), Auguste Möser (1825–1859), Teresa Milanello (1827–1904), and François Prune (1816–1849), most of which are dated 1844; a letter “from Marie de Blériot” (Marie, née Hueber), the second wife of Charles-Auguste de Bériot, to Madame Lahure, dated May 17, 1844, in Vienna; drawings and sketches, including one depicting a presumed view of the interior of Amiens Cathedral, attributed to the Belgian painter and draftsman Jules Génisson (1805–1874); folk songs by André van Hasselt (1806–1874), a Belgian poet and historian, in praise of Madame Lahure: “And the angels sang: Come to us, Young girl / Come see our beautiful sky where everything shines / Our sky, which from below, we gaze upon on our knees / Our sky, studded with infinite splendors / Where you will live among our blessed ranks,” etc. Letters also addressed to General Lahure, requesting advice and orders, including a letter dated April 22 instructing the general to convey the King of the Belgians’ regards to the Queen of the Netherlands at the French border and to accompany her to the French imperial train, and a handwritten letter “General Billot,” commander of the 1st Army Corps based in Lille, dated October 9, 1886. Provenance - Aimée Victoire Jeannette Lahure, wife of General Félix-Corneille Lahure (1800–1882). - Then passed down through the family.