Advertisement, Imprimerie Cassan Fils (Primary Title)
Alphonse Mucha, Czech, active in France, 1860 - 1939 (Artist)
Alphone Mucha was a leading artist and designer of the Art Nouveau style in late 19th-century Paris. He is best known for his poster depicting sensual, languid women with flowing hair. His subjects included the celebrated actress Sarah Bernhardt with whom he worked in the mid-1890s. Mucha’s skill as a draftsman and decorative designer brought him commissions for a wide range of graphic projects, from large-scale advertisements for cigarette paper, champagne, and railroads to magazine and book illustrations.
This poster is an advertisement for the Cassan Fils printing firm founded in 1851 in Toulouse, France. A small engraving of the same subject was displayed at an exhibition of posters in Rheims, France in November 1896. The larger size, seen here, debuted in 1897 at La Plume, an exhibition for the magazine of the same name. Here a seminude female figure poses in front of a muscular printer that suggests an allegory of industry. Like other female figures by Mucha, the woman’s luxurious hair is the artist’s signature trademark. At the right, an unusual border with “eyes” may refer to the eyes of people who buy printed material. This symbolic motif also appears in other designs by Mucha.
Mucha 1860-1939, exh. cat., Grand Palais, Paris, 1980, no. 25;
Alfons Mucha 1860-1939, exh. cat., Mathildenhohe Darmstadt, 1980, p. 111, no. 47;
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