Height 15.5 in., Width 11.25 in. Imprimerie Chaix, Paris. This richly detailed original stone lithograph by Swiss-French Art Nouveau master Eugene Grasset advertises the Parisian department store A La Place Clichy as the premiere establishment in the world for Oriental imports, depicting a stately turbaned North African merchant with staff and robes displaying a richly patterned carpet to a white-suited European buyer, the two figures set against a dark blue ground filled with stacked Oriental rugs and carpets in vivid geometric patterns. The original poster was created by Grasset in 1891 and printed by G de Malherbe Paris -- one of the most celebrated and widely reproduced commercial poster designs of the early French Art Nouveau period, notable for its combination of Orientalist subject matter with the flat color and strong contour line that defined the emerging poster art movement. Eugene Grasset is recognized as one of the principal figures who brought Art Nouveau to the poster medium and pioneered the reconciliation of art and industry in France -- described by poster scholar Weill as the pioneer of an attempt, like that of William Morris in England, to reconcile art and industry. This plate 18 of Les Maitres de lAffiche is from the first volume of the series published in 1896 and represents one of the most sought after early plates in the publication. The print carries the Imprimerie Chaix blindstamp confirming authenticity as an original 1896 lithograph and is in very good condition with vivid color and clean margins throughout.
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