?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 25,000 - $ 35,000
GEORGES LEPAPE. "Après la Tempête." Cover illustration for Vogue magazine, published April 1919. Watercolor, ink, and graphite, with gold highlighting on paper. Image measures 210 mm; 8 1/4-inches tondo, on 10 1/4x10-inch sheet. Signed in lower right image and Inscribed and Signed in lower right margin. Accompanied by a copy of the 1919 Vogue issue on which it appears. Cornered to foam mount and framed.
exquisite vogue cover by lepape of madame condé nast in a fortuny tea gown, inscribed and signed to her at the end of world war one. The inscription reads "à Madame Condé Nast, hommages respectueux, Geo. Lepape Paris, 1919." Madame Condé Nast (Clarisse Coudert) was then wife of Vogue's publisher, Condé Montrose Nast. She was a fan of the designer Fortuny and so Lepape depicted her here, with auburn hair, red lips and nails, in a classic Fortuny tea gown with gold robe and a Bleuet de France pinned to the bodice as a nod to the war's end. Both the title of the piece and the stormy sky in the background reflect France's atmosphere at the end of the war. Lepape was at the height of his creative output when he created this work, having made his mark bringing Paul Poiret's fashion designs to light with "Les Choses" in 1911, followed by the myriad covers and couture designs for the great fashion houses and magazines in Paris and London. Provenance: descended through Nast family to a private collection, Boston, Massachusetts; thence to auction in 1994, to current owner.
