Arsène Herbinier (b. 1869) (after)
E. le Deley (heliotype printer)
Aurore de Juin, Pl. 14 [June Sunrise]
[Violinist] Pl. 31
from Documents de Décoration Florale Moderne
[Documents of Modern Floral Decoration]
Armand Guérinet, 140 Faubourc Saint-Martin, Paris: c. 1899-1909
16 x 11.75 inches, each
Heliotypes
$900, the pair
Art Nouveau Flower Designs
Pair of Prints
Pair of Prints
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Pair of prints from a series demonstrating floral ornament in Art Nouveau style compositions. One shows a slender woman in a flowing gown playing the violin, wreathed in vines bearing large pink flowers, which also forms the print’s border. The other, a landscape at dawn, shows an elegant woman in a pale blue gown and shawl before a pond filled with water lilies and two nude bathers. That entire composition is set within an elaborate border decorated with ferns, butterflies and bows.
The prints are representative of Art Nouveau style in a variety of ways. For example the sinuous lines, incorporation of naturalistic motifs, pale female figures in draped flowing gowns, and nude figures, are typical of the style. In addition, like other Art Nouveau works, these images were clearly influenced by Japanese prints.
Arsène Herbinier was a lithograph artist, born in Paris and a student of L.O. Merson, Eugene Grasset and Broquelet. He was a member of the Salon of the Society of French Artists (also known as the Salon de Paris) until 1909. Armand Guérinet edited and published numerous collections of illustrated decorative arts, architecture, and fashion books in the first three decades of the 20th century.
Collections of prints like these provided source material for designers of fabrics, wallpaper, ceramics, book illustrations, posters, and advertisements, and were popular in the late 19th and early 20th century. The leading Victorian publication of this type was Owen Jones’s Grammar of Ornament, first issued in a folio edition in London in 1856. Other trendsetting styles in art, design, decoration and fashion came from Paris, and many such print collections were published there by Armand Guérinet and others; the works by Eugene Alain Seguy on our site, incorporating butterfly and insect motifs, are one example, the prints of Emile Belet, another. Indeed, various works by Seguy, Herbinier and Belet appeared together in a collection of color plates published in 1900 by Guerinet titled Peinture d’Art Nouveau, 3e série. In the summer of 2004, the Museum at FIT (the Fashion Institute of Technology) exhibited a print by Herbinier in a similar style, also published by A. Guérinet, from a collection called Frises, bordures, panneaux au pochoir [Friezes, borders, and panels in pochoir]
Condition: Generally very good with the usual light overall toning, handling, soft creases, wear. Edges with a bit of wear and few short tears, can be matted out.
References:
Bénézit, E. Dictionnaire critique et documentaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs et Graveurs. France: Librairie Gründ, 1966. Vol. 4, p. 667.
“The Art of Pattern, Line and Design.” The Artful Line: Drawings & Prints from FIT’s Special Collections of the Gladys Marcus Library. (image upper right) http://www3.fitnyc.edu/museum/artful_line/pattern.htm (9 December 2004).