?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 12,000 - $ 18,000
FELIX VALLOTTON (1865–1925) L'ART NOUVEAU EXPOSITION PERMANENTE. Circa 1896. 23 1/2x17 1/4 inches. Lemaergier, Paris. Condition B+: repaired tears in margins. The Art Nouveau movement derived its name from Samuel Bing's gallery l'Art Nouveau which opened in Paris in 1895. Bing was born in Germany into a family of ceramic dealers. He moved to Paris as a young man and began producing china. Like many artists of the time he was heavily influenced by Japanese art. He traveled to Japan in 1878 and published a book, "Artistic Japan," about his artistic discoveries there. Further travels took him to America, from whence he returned with works by Louis Comfort Tiffany. By 1895 he had settled in Paris and opened his gallery, whose name came to represent the most powerful art movement of the end of the 19th century. Bing's contribution to the art world was widely acknowledged during his lifetime; he was even given his own pavilion at the 1900 Paris World's Fair. Felix Vallotton, who had been a student at the Academie Julien, and a member of the Nabis art group, was well known within the circle of the Revue Blanche. In his early years he specialized in monochromatic wood block prints and then started painting. In 1896, Samuel Bing commissioned Pierre Bonnard, Henri Ibels, Toulouse-Lautrec and Felix Vallotton to design stained glass windows that were ultimately realized by Tiffany, and were installed in his gallery. It was likely at this time that he also asked Vallotton to design this small poster. The design is a very simple and sensitive stylized vegetal motif. It is an extremely rare document, of both historical importance and artistic merit. Schindler 41.
