Images de Gangel (Metz, publisher/printer, fl. c. 1840–1892)

Images de Gangel was the popular-printing and publishing enterprise established by Nicolas Gangel (1798–1860), originally active in Lunéville and later in Metz, specializing in the production of popular imagery, devotional prints, games, and illustrated ephemera. Beginning in the 1820s, Gangel developed a business devoted to wood-engraved and lithographed images, and in 1840 entered into partnership with Adrien-Népomucène Dembour (1799–1887), a Metz lithographer active since 1833, whose technical expertise helped expand the firm’s production and distribution. Following Dembour’s retirement in 1852, the company continued under Gangel and later passed to his sons, Auguste Gangel (1828–1860) and Charles Victor Gangel (1830–1869), before evolving into the firm Gangel et Didion after 1861 under Charles Gangel and Paulin Didion (1831–1879).

The enterprise became especially known for inexpensive popular and religious prints, children’s games, cut-out figures, and educational imagery characteristic of nineteenth-century French imagerie populaire. After Charles Gangel’s death in 1869 and the disruptions caused by the Franco-Prussian War and the annexation of Metz, the business declined; following Didion’s death in 1879, it passed to Jean Jules Delhalt (1819–?), and under Alfred Delhalt, the printing house was transferred from Metz to Nancy in 1892.