?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 4,000 - $ 6,000
ALPHONSE MUCHA LE PATER. 1899. 16x12 inches. F. Champenois and Piazza, Paris. Condition A-: spine split. Le Pater (Mucha's interpretation of the The Lord's Prayer), printed in a run of only 510 copies, is one of the most important books of the Art Nouveau era, and is considered to be Mucha's major contribution to book design. It was published by Piazza, who had successfully published Mucha's Ilsee, Princesse de Tripoli, in 1897. That Mucha had mystical inclinations and a fantastic imagination is amply proven in this book. In this extraordinary volume he mixes conventional religious imagery with Masonic references, to the point where his flowers are no longer decorative, but powerfully symbolic and where ornamentation reaches abstraction. The typography is based on illuminated medieval manuscripts, and each page seems more beautiful and complex than the last. Ann Bridges notes that "In Mucha's opinion, the book that was more important than any of his Art Nouveau works was Le Pater . . . [and] represented the height of his achievements." (Mucha p. 139). Mucha L23, pps 96-99.
