?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,000
EUGENE GRASSET (1841-1917) L'ODEON. 1890. 48x321/2 inches. Malherbe & H.A. Cellot, Paris. Condition A-: minor repaired tears in margins. Grasset studied in Zurich and traveled around Europe before he settled in Paris where he became a major influence on the development of Art Nouveau. He worked in all aspects of the decorative arts; pioneering new illustration printing processes with Gillot, designing furniture, plates, stained-glass, textiles, jewelry, and creating a new type face known as "Le Grasset". He was also the first French theorist of Art Nouveau, publishing several books on the subject including La Plante et ses Applications Ornementales and Methode de Composition Ornementale. Grasset had already designed a poster similar to this in 1887, La Librarie Romantique, with a blank box in the image for the insertion of text. Victor Arwas states, L'Odeon was a somewhat regressive poster in Grasset's development of stylization." In this advertisement for the upcoming season at the Theatre Nationale de L'Odeon, Grasset focuses more on the drama of the theater-goers than on the performances. A young woman appears bored, her opera glasses unused in front of her and a theater program discarded at her feet. Her matronly companion sits contentedly against the wall of their loge, while in the adjacent box a handsome young man flirts with his companion instead of watching the show. The poster was a huge success for the theatre and also for Malherbe de Collet, who became Grasset's exclusive printer after this image. Unlike his later works, which were strictly color lithographs, this poster represents a combination of processes including color lithography and wood engraving. The initials of the engraver, VDH, appear in the lower right corner. Arwas 3, DFP II 400, Wine Spectator 33, Abdy p. 121.
