JEAN M. PESKE (1870-1949) [L'ESTAMPE ET L'AFFICHE.] 1898. 37x51 3/8 inches. Condition A: creases in margins and image. Paper. After Bonnard (see lot 47), Janin and Mellerio commissioned a far more ambitious poster. The artist they chose, Jean Peské, produced a masterpiece. Born in Russia, Peské studied at the Académie Julien and went on to become a very popular landscape painter. Unfortunately this is the only poster he is known to have designed. The languid scene, in Brittany, shows two women reclining on a carpet, reading, and overlooking the curve of a bay, sloping hills and a small boat. It is a perfectly balanced, well-colored Nabi print. The image is a delicate patchwork of nature, art, beauty and grace. Crauzat, writing in L'Estampe et L'Affiche (1898, p. 118), mentions that Peské drew the image on the lithographic stone himself. This is the very rare signed and numbered version before text. DFP II 710, Weill 81, Wine Spectator 66.
![JEAN M. PESKE (1870-1949) [LESTAMPE ET LAFFICHE.] 1898. 37x51 inches.](https://catalogue.swanngalleries.com/full//149\580149.jpg)
