Pamono E. Grasset, Napoleon from Les Maîtres de L’Affiche, 1898, Original Lithograph> Art Nouveau

Eugène Grasset (1845-1917)

Napoleon

Year of ideation: 1894
Year: 1898
Lithograph on wove paper
Publisher: Chaix

Size: 40 x 29 cm
Signed in the plate, lower left

from the famous collection “Les Maîtres de l’Affiche”
Issue # 32, Plate #126, July 1898

Bottom left:
Les Maîtres de l’Affiche PL. 126
Imprimerie Chaix
(Encres Lorilleux & Cie.)

Bottom right, blind stamp of publisher / edition

Excellent Condition

Literature:
“The Complete Masters of the Poster”, edited by Stanley Appelbaum, Dover, New York, 1990, p. 126
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About the collection “Les Maîtres de l’Affiche”

Les Maîtres de l’Affiche (The Masters of the Poster) is one of the most prestigious and influential art publications in history. Its 256 color plates have preserved for each succeeding generation a wide-ranging selection of outstanding posters from the turn of the century, when that popular art form had reached its first peak.

The earliest printed posters were chiefly typographic, with relatively few illustrated examples. But in the second half of the nineteenth century, when all types of commercial products, including printed matter, were being aesthetically upgraded, largely thanks to various arts-and-crafts movements, serious artists such as Manet began to see new possibilities in the poster medium. It was especially Jules Chéret (1836-1932) whose unique combination of artistic, technical and entrepreneurial talents was to pave the way for a true poster industry. After Chéret opened his own print shop in Paris in 1866, his work continued to inspire numerous emulators in Europe and America. from 1881 on, his shop operated as a branch of the large Chaix firm (Imprimerie Chaix)

By the 1890s the streets of every great metropolis were enlivened by large, colourful posters.
This Chaix publication, Les Maîtres de l’Affiche, was issued as separate numbered sheets measuring 40 x 29 cm. Every month for 60 months, from December 1895 through November 1900, subscribers received a wrapper containing four consecutively numbered poster. On 16 occasions the monthly wrapper also contained a bonus plate, a specially created art lithograph. Jules Chéret, artistic director of Chaix and father of the modern poster, emerged with the lion’s share of the plates, one Chéret being included in each monthly issue of four, and seven of the 16 unnumbered bonus plates.

Of the 97 artists represented in Les Maîtres de l’Affiche, some were preeminent painters and printmakers at various stages of their careers: Toulouse-Lautrec, Denis, Bonnard, Vallotton, Puvis de Chavannes. Others were famous illustrators and cartoonists of the period, still well known to art collectors and bibliophiles. Forain, Caran d’Ache, Ibels, Willette, Boutet de Monvel, Léandre. But there were also all those whose names say “poster,” the conquering pioneers of the new medium. Chéret himself, Mucha, Steinlen, the Beggarstaffs, Grasset, Penfield, Parrish, Bradley, Hardy The list could go on and on.
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About the Artist

Eugène Samuel Grasset (1845 – 1917) was a Swiss artist who worked in Paris, France in a variety of creative design fields during the Belle Époque. He is considered a pioneer in Art Nouveau design.

Grasset was raised in an artistic environment as the son of a cabinetmaker and sculptor who taught him at an early age how to use the chisel and the gouge.
He studied drawing under Francois-Louis David Bocion and in 1861 went to Zürich to study architecture. After completing his education, he visited Egypt, an experience that would later be reflected in a number of his poster designs. He became an admirer of Japanese art, which influenced some of his designs as well.

Between 1869 and 1870, Grasset worked as a theatre painter and sculptor in Lausanne. Here he met Viollet le Duc, whose reflection on the Middle Ages and the method advocating the link between form, function and material came to permeate Grasset’s work. In 1871 he moved to Paris where poster art, based on the work of Viollet le Duc, that quickly became his forte.
Grasset taught design at the École Guérin from 1890 to 1903. Among his students were Paul Berthon, Georges Bourgeot, Paul Follot, Marcelle Gaudin and Augusto Giacometti.
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Important:

. The listing is for the original lithograph.
. The cover of the issue by Jules Chéret is shown for reference.