?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,200 - $ 1,800
ALPHONSE MUCHA (1860-1939)
COMBINAISONS ORNEMENTALES. Complete folio, with magazine & small book. 1901.
Librairie Centrale des Beaux Arts, Paris. Condition B+: Small oblong folio, title-page, introduction and all plates loose as issued, in publisher's decorative boards with cloth ties; boards moderately darkened and with some soiling and archival tape inside; one plate trimmed, some with small tears and creases.
With - In Bohemia (1905), by James Clarence Harvey, including illustrations by Mucha; and Maj, Vol. II, No. 3 (1902), with Mucha cover.
Mucha had a privileged relationship with the Librairie Centrale des Beaux Arts. When he arrived in Paris in 1890; they were among the first to give him commissions for illustrations. They also published his key theoretical essays, the Documents Lithographiques and the Documents Décoratifs. The Combinaisons Ornementales, which is justifiably considered to be the bible of Art Nouveau decorative elements, is an exceptional collection of Art Nouveau patterns and designs which "se multipliant a l'infini a l'aide du miroir." Created by three artists: Mucha (who designed the title page and ten of the plates), P. Verneuil and G. Auriol, the title page, instructions and 58 separate plates are each in three colors.
