Legende Doree

This brightly colored lithographed poster is from L’Estampe Moderne. The work was published by one of the best printers of the day, Champenois. The lithographs were printed under the supervision of C. Masson and H. Piazza and published in Paris between May 1897 and April 1899.

The work was sent out every month with four prints and a cover with art work by Alphonse Mucha by subscription only. The intention of this work was to “reanimate and disseminate the taste for prints” (issue 24), thus 2000 of each print were published plus 100 on Japan paper.

This famous collection included works by major Art Nouveau artists including Alphonse Mucha, Louis Rhead, Marcel Lenoir, Henri Boutet, Henri Fantin-Latour, Edward Burne-Jones, and Théophile Steinlen. Every print has the blind stamp of a woman’s profile in a lower corner. The large format lithographs are on excellent quality paper. When available we will include a tissue descriptive paper original to the work.The lithographs were done by the artists, rather than after, which makes the plates original Art Nouveau.