?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,000 - $ 3,000
JANE ATCHÉ (1872-1937) JOB / PAPIER A CIGARETTES. 1889. 56 5/8x42 3/4 inches, 143 3/4x108 1/2 cm. Cassan Fils, Toulouse. Condition B-: partially-replaced margins; extensive staining and overpainting in margins; repaired tears, restored losses, sharp creases and overpainting in image. Framed. Unexamined out of frame. For many years, the biography of J. Atché was a mystery. Jirí Mucha, in the book he wrote about his father, refers to Atché as a male friend of the artist. In fact, Jane Atché, a woman, was born in Toulouse and moved to Paris to study art. Her biography, written by Claudine Dhotel-Velliet, picks up the story here: she studied at l'Academié Julian, the only school that accepted female students, under Jean-Paul Laurens and Benjamin Constant, both well-established academic painters born in Toulouse. As she was interested in graphic arts, Laurens introduced her to Mucha and she proceeded to work with him as a student and then as an assistant (specifically on Ilsée, his colossal book project). Jean Bardou, the owner of Job rolling papers, was an amateur d'art who consistently picked the best artists to design his posters. We'll never know whether Atché came to his attention through Cassan, the Toulouse printer he used, or Mucha, who designed one of Bardou's posters. The exceptional result depicts an elegant and stylistic vision of a sophisticated woman languidly enjoying a cigarette. The image, which is imbued with Atché's own personal style, is bereft of exaggerated Art Nouveau details, with the exception of the smoke, which is in direct reference to Mucha's iconic curves. DFP-II 24 (var), Reims 208, Abdy p. 149, Wine Spectator 101, Maitres 1900 p. 26 (var), Art Nouveau p. 122.
