Sale 2497 - Fine Illustrated Books & Graphics, January 29, 2019

100 c   GRASSET, EUGÈNE. La Plante et ses applications Ornementales. 72 richly colored and intricately designed plates. Folio, Introduction and plates loose as issued in publisher’s gilt-pictorial cloth portfolio, cloth ties lacking, lightly spotted; plates generally clean and bright but for common occasional marginal toning and soiling. Paris: Lévy, 1895   [6,000/9,000] By the late 1890s, Grasset had two design studios in Paris. In addition to his own office, he also operated a workshop where his senior students worked under his supervision on projects like this portfolio which became a great influence on Art Nouveau style in France and continental Europe. Each student was assigned a specific motif. Maurice Pillard Verneuil (1869-1942), the most obviously talented, designed highly detailed plates of each plant seen from every angle. (Later, Verneuil designed l’Animaux dans la Decoration, 1897, which he dedicated to Grasset). Subsequent plates show the same plant adapted to designs for wallpaper, textiles, glass, silver, furniture, etc. by some of the lesser-known artists. This work stands with other masterworks of Art Nouveau printing such as Alphonse Mucha’s Documents Décoratifs. Arwas page 67 ff, Murray-Robertson, page 92-93, Verneuil, page 25 ff. ART NOUVEAU THROUGH ART DECO LOTS 100-139