ABC d'Art: Croquis d'Animaux et Lettres Ornées — Plate "E"
Paris: Dorbon Ainé, circa 1920.
Print: 13 3/4" x 10 1/2" mat: 20" x 16". Pochoir (stencil) plate for the letter "E": a leopard in ochre-and-black rosettes shown seizing a crowned crane rendered in slate-grey and white plumage, the pair set within the block form of the letter against a warm tan ground. Captioned Épiée par une panthère cette superbe grue couronnée vient d'être saisie avec la rapidité de l'éclair and signed Miarko within the image. Matted.
Miarko — pen name of Edmond Bouchard (1889–1924) — built this animal alphabet suite around one vignette per letter, each stenciled by hand rather than printed by press. Jean Saudé, credited here as colorist, ran one of Paris's foremost pochoir ateliers of the period and later set the technique down in its standard manual, the Traité d'enluminure d'art au pochoir (1925); the layered, hand-applied pigment gave Art Deco publishers a depth and saturation machine color printing of the day could not match.
Item #144213Price: $400.00