Papillons Portfolio of four colour plates (pochoirs) of decorative butterfly designs.

Description:

The Papillons portfolio consisted of twenty prints which included four plates of decorative compositions. Presented here are the four decorative prints only, with some images heightened in metallic paint. The prints are housed in the rare original card portfolio.

Nissen ZBI 3798.

Émile Alain Seguy (1877-1945) is considered one of the major and influential artists of the Art Deco period. He studied at the School of Decorative Arts in Paris and in 1913, founded the art department of the Grands Magasins du Printemps. During his life he created eleven portfolios of illustrations which reflected the influences of both Art Nouveau and Art Deco. His portfolios which are admired as exquisite examples of ornamentation and composition, provided source material for artists and designers and featured motifs and geometric patterns inspired by the natural world, including flowers, crystals and insects. The rich and intensely coloured prints were produced using a technique popular in France at the beginning of the 20th century known as Pochoir. This technique involves applying pigment to paper through the use of stencils using brushes or pompons. These highly desirable prints were produced entirely by hand, each individually examined and approved upon completion. Jean Saudé, a French printmaker and proponent of the pochoir technique, believed this was the only printing process which fully translated the artist’s original intention as the process was entirely carried out by hand. As the pochoir process was expensive and labour intensive it was replaced by techniques such as lithography.

Condition

Original dec. card portfolio with ties (445x325mm), scuffed. Plates no 17-20 (4 plates of 20), each with Seguy’s stamp to bottom left, light browning to edges, otherwise very good.