F. HUGO D'ALÉSI (1849-1906) VITTEL VOSGES / CHEMIN DE FER DE L'EST. Circa 1890. 42 1/4x30 3/4 inches, 107 1/4x78 cm. Hugo D'Alési, Paris. Condition A-: minor creases and abrasions at edges; horizontal fold; small punch holes at sides; pencil notations in lower left corner. Paper. Romanian-born Hugo d'Alési was one of the earliest artists to design posters for the French railway companies. They were printed using a process similar to chromolithography called simile-aquarelle (literally, faux watercolor), that required up to 20 different colors to render the final image, making them much more richly printed, detailed and painterly than the travel posters from subsequent decades. By some accounts he designed "hundreds for the railway companies" (Hillion p. 278). It was such an expensive process that it drove the artist into bankruptcy shortly before his premature death. D'Alési's posters caught the eye of many in France and around the world, including Paul Cézanne, who commented, "I should like to do decorative landscapes like Hugo d'Alési, yes, with my small sensibility" (Cezanne p. 232). From the Julius Paul Collection, with the Albertina stamp and pencil-written inventory number on verso. Hillion p. 116, Cezanne p. 232.
