?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 7,000 - $ 10,000
GRASSET, EUGÈNE. Les Mois: Douze Compositions. Three suites of chromotypograph plates by Grasset, one in black-and-white woodcut on mounted India proof paper, the second in colors, on China paper, and the third, in colors, on Japan paper. Folio, contemporary 3/4 vellum over marbled paper, the spine ornately calligraphed in red, blue, and gold, slightly bowed; front wrapper bound in; custom linen clamshell box with gilt-lettered tan calf spine label. Paris: G. de Malherbe (1895)
"This series of decorative calender pages is a lady's book a la mode with comely maidens dressed in 'aesthetic' free-flowing costumes joyfully tending their well-ordered, full-flowering gardens. These garden settings are a foil for his sense of formalized surface pattern, showing the influence of Walter Crane"--Garvey/Wick 50.
In the early 1890s Grasset began experimenting with a new form of printing, Chromotypography, an early form of photolithography, which was invented by one of his friends, Firmin Gillot. This calendar was printed in "Gillotage," from wood engravings. Both Arwas and Murray Robertson date this calendar to 1896, but it was offered in the May 15, 1894 issue of La Plume, (which was dedicated to Grasset's work) thus making the calendar two years older than previously thought. La Plume offered the calendar for sale on vellum (like this copy) at 5 francs and quoted it as "extremely rare." The images are perfect examples of Grasset's style, mixing symbolist women with the flowers of gardens that change with the seasons. Grasset spent nearly 20 years of his career working for La Belle Jardinier, the Parisian department store. In 1899 he designed a second calendar for them (which La Plume offered for sale for 2.5 francs), and then again in 1904. Murrary Robertson also reproduces two projects for unrealized calendars in 1914 and 1915. (p. 100)--Arwas pages 26-28; Murray Robertson page 123.
