Exposition jewellery

grasset1.jpg

Broche Marguerite.

Still in the 19th century, and more contributions to the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1900. The first and third of these are collaborations between Art Nouveau designer Eugène Grasset and jeweller brothers Henri & Paul Vever. The butterfly woman is Henri Vever’s own creation.

Well-known jewellers since the 1870s, Henri and Paul Vever broke new ground at the Universal Exhibition of 1900 when they presented a new line of “artistic” jewellery alongside more traditional pieces. They asked the decorator Eugène Grasset to design the new pieces. Grasset, who was the author of the famous vignette on Larousse dictionaries: “Je sème à tous vents”, had trained as a sculptor, designed furniture, posters, stained-glass windows and ceramics and made a name as an illustrator. (More.)

vever.jpg

Sylvia.

grasset2.jpg

Apparitions.

Previously on { feuilleton }
Exposition Universelle catalogue
Jewelled butterflies and cephalopods
Exposition Universelle publications
Exposition cornucopia
Return to the Exposition Universelle
The Palais Lumineux
Louis Bonnier’s exposition dreams
Exposition Universelle, 1900
The art of Philippe Wolfers, 1858–1929
The Palais du Trocadéro
Lalique’s dragonflies
Lucien Gaillard

Jugend, 1897

jugend-97-01

Continuing the series of posts about Jugend magazine, all these samples are from the issues for 1897. This is where things start getting really interesting graphically so I’m only posting a very small selection from 900 pages of content. As before, anyone interested is advised to examine the complete volumes which can be viewed and downloaded here and here.

jugend-97-02

jugend-97-03

Cupid drawings abound in early issues of Jugend, with men and women falling prey to love’s vicissitudes. This is one of the more unusual examples.

Continue reading “Jugend, 1897”

The art of Melchior Lechter, 1865–1937

lechter1.jpg

The first issue of yesterday’s arts and crafts magazine Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration includes an article about Melchior Lechter, a German artist and designer whose illustration work I knew from books by gay poet Stefan George but who seems unjustly neglected by fin de siècle art histories. The reminder prompted me to search a bit more actively and doing so turned up another Internet Archive document, Melchior Lechter, a monograph from 1904 by Maximilian Rapsilber. These are Google scans and the quality is very good for once, with a collection of impressive graphic works in Lechter’s religious Art Nouveau style, as well as photos of his furniture and stained glass window designs. I can’t say much more about artist since all the available documentation is in German but the visuals in Rapsilber’s book make me wish we could see more of his work.

(Note: if you want to download the full PDF, do so here.)

lechter2.jpg

lechter3.jpg

lechter4.jpg

lechter5.jpg

lechter6.jpg

lechter7.jpg

lechter8.jpg

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
The illustrators archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration