?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 20,000 - $ 30,000
ALPHONSE MUCHA (1860-1939) DOCUMENTS DECORATIFS. Portfolio with 72 plates. 1902. Each plate approximately 18x13 inches, 45 3/4x33 cm. Emile Levy, Paris. Condition varies, generally A: contents loose as issued in original pictorial wrappers; publisher's pictorial board portfolio slightly scuffed. Each plate with library ink stamp on verso. Mucha had a privileged relationship with the Librairie Centrale des Beaux Arts, the publisher of the Documents Decoratifs. When he arrived in Paris in 1890, the library was among the first to give him commissions for illustrations. They also published his key theoretical essays, the Documents Lithographiques, and the Combinaisions Ornementales, which is rightly considered to be the bible of Art Nouveau decorative elements. In this portfolio, Mucha, who was at the height of his artistic career, shows examples of jewelry, furniture and silverware, and illustrates how to draw women and flowers (the two main themes of Art Nouveau), in all cases brilliantly demonstrating his stylistic prowess. Each of the 72 plates is a masterpiece of Art Nouveau design. Complete copies are extremely rare, since most have been broken up to sell plate by plate. Lendl p. 132-33 no. 105, Mucha L31, Spirit of Art Nouveau 123.
